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Consumer experience now our priority—NCC
The Nigerian Communications Commission has said it is restructuring its approach to telecom regulation by shifting from measuring only technical performance to evaluating the entire experience of subscribers across the country. Director Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Edoyemi Ogoh, said on Wednesday. He said that the Commission is now assessing how easy it is for Nigerians to recharge their phones, subscribe to services, resolve complaints, and even exit a network when they choose to. He said this broader approach has become necessary because subscribers judge network performance based on overall experience, not just the ability to make calls. Ogoh explained that a subscriber may have strong call quality but still rate a network as poor if they are unable to recharge their phone or get value for their purchase.
He said, “there are a lot of aspects that encompass that whole experience of subscribers. And one of the things that we are doing as NCC is we are not looking at it purely from the technical perspective, as per just quality of service in terms of ‘are you able to make calls or not’. We are looking at the totality of the experience of subscribers. “Vis-a-vis how easy is it for you to even recharge your phones, for example. When you recharge your phones, are you getting value immediately from those recharges? When you lay complaints, how quickly are you able to get those complaints resolved? When you are coming on to a network, how easy is it for you to even get your subscription? Even when you want to leave, how easy is it for you to leave? So those are some of the things that we are looking at as per quality of experience, no longer quality of service. We are now looking at the totality of the experience of subscribers.”
Ogoh said that device issues, limited network capacity, high-rise buildings, rapid urbanisation, vandalism, roadworks, and community obstruction can affect coverage and cause service gaps for subscribers. He said the NCC is working with the Office of the National Security Adviser, the NSCDC, state governments and the Ministry of Works to protect telecom infrastructure and prevent damage. He said that thousands of fibre cuts were recorded in the first half of the year, seriously affecting 4G and 5G performance across many locations. Ogoh also addressed concerns about poor 5G experience and fast data depletion. He said 5G delivers higher speeds that automatically trigger high-definition video, which consumes more data. The “In areas where 5G coverage exists, it works well.
But it is not yet everywhere, and fibre cuts affect performance,” he said. On whether operators are meeting their obligations, Ogoh said service quality has improved compared to January but admitted they “are probably not yet where they should be.” He said NCC is now enforcing compliance more strictly and holding operators and infrastructure companies accountable for all issues within their control. He said that operators have deployed over 2,400 new sites in the last year, alongside expansions on existing infrastructure, as investments begin to rise again after two years of decline. On broadband penetration, Ogoh said government interventions, new fibre routes, and universal access programmes aim to ensure rural communities benefit, not just urban centres. “The intent is to make sure all Nigerians, irrespective of where they live, have access to broadband infrastructure,” he said. He urged subscribers facing persistent service challenges to escalate complaints, noting that NCC now publishes coverage maps, outage reports, operator performance and tower company ratings on its website to increase transparency.
A new technology transfer agreement between the Nigeria–China Strategic Partnership (NCSP) and the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer (PICTT) is expected to open more job opportunities, improve local skills, and expand access to advanced technology for ordinary Nigerians.
In a press statement reaching Vanguard on Friday, the MoU aims to strengthen industrial development, support local content, and create clearer pathways for Nigerians to benefit from China’s growing investments in the country.
PICTT Chairman, Dr Dahiru Mohammed, said the partnership will immediately begin coordinated programmes that support local participation in infrastructure and industrial projects.
Special Adviser to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr John Uwajumogu, said the deal will help attract high value investments that can stimulate job creation and strengthen Nigeria’s economy.
NCSP Head of International Relations, Ms Judy Melifonwu, highlighted that Nigerians stand to gain from expanded STEM scholarships, technical training, access to modern technology, and collaboration across key sectors including steel, agriculture, automobile parks, and cultural industries.
The NCSP Director-General reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to measurable results, noting that the partnership with PICTT will prioritise initiatives that deliver direct national impact.
The MoU signals a new phase of Nigeria–China cooperation focused on practical delivery, local content, and opportunities that improve everyday livelihoods.
EU regulators launched an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms on Thursday over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in its WhatsApp messenger that would block rivals, hardening Europe’s already tough stance on Big Tech. The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, is the latest action by European Union regulators against large technology firms such as Amazon and Alphabet’s Google as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.
Europe’s tough stance – a marked contrast to more lenient U.S. regulation – has sparked an industry pushback, particularly by U.S. tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of U. S. President Donald Trump. The European Commission said that the investigation will look into Meta’s new policy that would limit other AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, a potential boost for its own Meta AI system integrated into the platform earlier this year.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the move was to prevent dominant firms from “abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors”. She added interim measures could be imposed to block Meta’s new WhatsApp AI policy rollout. “AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond,” she said. This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims “baseless”, adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a “strain on our systems that they were not designed to support”, a reference to AI systems from other providers. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.” The EU was the first in the world to establish a comprehensive legal framework for AI, setting out guardrails for AI systems and rules for certain high-risk applications in the AI Act.
Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp’s interface across European markets since March. The Commission said a new policy fully applicable from January 15, 2026, may block competing AI providers from reaching customers via the platform. Ribera said the probe came on the back of complaints from small AI developers about the WhatsApp policy. The Interaction Company of California, which has developed AI assistant Poke.com, has taken its grievance to the EU competition enforcer. Spanish AI startup Luzia has also talked to the Commission, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder and CEO of The Interaction Company of California, said if Meta was allowed to roll out its new policy, “millions of European consumers will be deprived of the possibility of enjoying new and innovative AI assistants”. Meta also risks a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
Italy’s antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp, expanding the probe in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform. The antitrust probe is a more traditional means of investigation than the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s landmark legislation currently used to scrutinize Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud services for potential curbs. Reuters
The spouses and children of billionaires inherited more wealth in 2025 than in any previous year since reporting began in 2015, according to UBS’s Billionaire Ambitions Report published on Thursday. In the 12 months to April, 91 people became billionaires through inheritance, collectively receiving $298 billion, up more than a third from 2024, the Swiss bank said. “These heirs are proof of a multi-year wealth transfer that’s intensifying,” UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli said.
The report is based on a survey of some of UBS’s super-rich clients and a database that tracks the wealth of billionaires across 47 markets in all world regions. At least $5.9 trillion will be inherited by billionaire children over the next 15 years, the bank calculates.
Most of this inheritance growth is set to take place in the United States, with India, France, Germany and Switzerland next on the list, UBS estimated. However, billionaires are highly mobile, especially younger ones, which could change that picture, it added. The search for a better quality of life, geopolitical concerns and tax considerations are driving decisions to relocate, according to the report.
In Switzerland, where $206 billion will be inherited over the next 15 years according to the bank, voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected 50 per cent tax on inherited fortunes of $62 million or more, after critics said it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people.
Switzerland, the UAE, the U.S. and Singapore are among billionaires’ preferred destinations, UBS’s Cavalli said. “In Switzerland, Sunday’s vote may have helped to increase the country’s appeal again,” he said. Reuters
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