MTN Nigeria and three other GSM networks have been fined a total of N1.17 billion in penalty for providing poor quality telephony service to mobile phone users in Nigeria, in a no-more-business-as usual hammer wielded by the nation’s telecoms regulator.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the nation’s telecoms regulator, has notified the four affected service providers that they must pay their respective fines not later than May 21 this year or risk a fresh round of punitive fine pegged at N2.5million per day if they default in meeting the payment deadline,.

Following the landmark regulatory hammer, MTN Nigeria, owned by South Africa’s MTN Group as well as Etisalat Nigeria, owned by Etisalat of the UAE, will pay each pay N360 million in punitive fine following the regulatory sanctions.

On the other hand, Airtel Nigeria, the local subsidiary of Bharti Airtel of India, will pay N270 million while Globacom, Nigeria’s Second National Operator (SNO), will pay N180 million fine.

Ahead of the formal notification of the sanctions, NCC has carried out network audit of telecoms companies that revealed varying degree of network quality issues among the affected GSM networks.

According to NCC April 2012 Audit Report, MTN, Etisalat and Airtel failed to meet the Commission’s target during the months of March and April this year when the regulator undertook the review while, “Glo recorded value cannot be validated in view of earlier comments above.”

According to the report, “general performance by the operators was poor on this KPI (key performance indicators) in the period under review. Etisalat recorded the worst performance when compared with others and Commission’s minimum threshold in the period under review.”

Source: Technology Times Online