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.