By: Mercy Peter
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has received the nod to penalise telecommunication firms for network failures.
An online medium, TechCabal, indicated that the directive was issued by the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani in a letter to the NCC’s management.
Consequently, Mobile Network Operations (MNOs) and other service providers in the telecoms industry are to deploy world-class infrastructure and solutions for their operations in the country.
The directive therefore introduced automatic penalties for telecom operators that failed to comply with network performance standards within 90 days.
The letter quoted Tijani to have directed the NCC to provide a 90-day framework aimed at moving telecom regulation from mediation toward rule-based enforcement.
The framework provides that in the first 30 days the NCC must publish quarterly, operator-specific Quality of Service (QoS) scorecards, tracking Call completion rates, Dropped calls, and Actual data speeds versus advertised claims metrics.
This is expected to revitalize the NCC’s Uptime Report portal, launched in May 2025, which requires operators to publicly disclose major network incidents.
The framework specified that from day 60, the NCC was expected to introduce automatic penalties for repeated service failures by the telcos, thereby ending the commission’s reliance on discretionary enforcement.
This component of the framework represents a clear departure from past practice in which disputes could linger for years before being resolved through negotiations by the NCC with the telcos in dispute.
Under the latest regulatory template, operators with persistent deficiencies will be required to submit formal remediation plans, detailing timelines and investment commitments and their continued non-compliance could lead to stiffer sanctions, including restrictions on network expansion approvals or access to regulatory incentives.
For instance, at the end of the 90 days, the NCC must publish a comprehensive progress report, comparing baseline service levels with post-enforcement outcomes.
Specifically, the latest framework implies that automatic penalties remove discretion from enforcement and that once an operator breaches predefined performance thresholds, sanctions will apply without lengthy investigations or negotiations.
