NCC declines MTN request on Visafone

…says approval will perpetuate MTN’s dominance

By Odunewu Segun

The Nigerian Communication Commission said it has declined the request by MTN to acquire the spectrum being used by Visafone even though it approved the acquisition of 100 per cent shareholding in the company by MTN.

NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Umar Danbatta disclosed this at a press conference recently to mark his one year in office, adding that the acquisition of Visafone frequency could perpetuate MTN’s dominant position in the Nigerian telecommunication market.

“In the recent wireless broadband frequency bidding process for the 2.6MHz spectrum by the commission, MTN Nigeria Limited emerged the winner of six slots. The licensing of frequency in this slot has suffered several setbacks until recently when six slots out of 14 made available by the commission were allocated for immediate deployment of 4G-LTE services,” he explained.

He said the commission has initiated processes for licensing of more broadband services on the 5.4GHz spectrum band. “We have opened the process for the allocation of frequencies in the 70/80GHz band (e-band). Approval has been given for the deployment of 4G Long Term Evolution Technology by NATCOM Development and Investment Limited, which has launched the first Voice over LTE call on February 25.”

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Reacting to the issue of unsolicited text messages and quality service, Danbatta said the NCC had constituted a task force to verify the compliance of telecoms operators with the directives issued to them. He said the NCC is promoting a Telecom Industry Working Group on Quality of Service that engages service providers to discuss germane matters on how to resolve critical quality of service.

According to him, the high level taskforce will identify all issues militating against quality of service in the networks, stressing that the report of the committee is already being implemented for the resolution of some urgent issues militating against quality of service.

He said that the quality of service on the various networks, which includes infrastructure, service providers’ facilities had taken considerable attention of the commission.

“We have so far made a presentation at the Governors Forum, especially to draw their attention to the National Economic Council’s resolution on multiple taxation and multiple regulations on deployment of telecom infrastructure.”

Prof Danbatta said that the NCC is also engaging the governors directly and so far have met and received the support of four governors who have agreed with our point of view.

“Our visits had fostered more understanding about the need to support the deployment infrastructure to energise economic activities in the states rather than discourage investments through imposition of taxes and multiple regulations.’’