About time
•NCC’s directive to telecoms firms to compensate subscribers over poor service is good but implementation is what matters Although the details are rather sketchy, the directive by the National Communications
•NCC’s directive to telecoms firms to compensate subscribers over poor service is good but implementation is what matters
Although the details are rather sketchy, the directive by the National Communications Commission, NCC, that mobile network operators compensate subscribers affected by prolonged or repeated poor quality of service is heart-warming. The move, according to the commission, is said to be aimed at ensuring accountability in the telecommunications sector.
It says that subscribers in impacted local government areas will receive automatic airtime credits for service failures affecting voice calls, SMS, and data; and, that both individual and corporate customers are eligible.
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“To be eligible, you must have experienced poor network service in an affected local government area, and you made at least one outgoing revenue-generating event (billed call, SMS, or data session) during the relevant period,” the NCC says in a post on its website. It also says that telecommunication companies are required to identify affected subscribers and provide compensation directly.
Most certainly, the directive goes beyond an acknowledgement of the problem that has become recurrent. Indeed, with many news outlets having reported, countless times, on the frequent network failures and the general degradation of services across the board, the matter has long gone past deniability.
Industry sources attribute the problem largely to massive fibre-cut incidents. In 2025 for instance, the industry reported fibre cuts as being responsible for 51.7% of mobile network disruptions in the four months between April and July 2025.
Power outages accounted for 28.1%, with both accounting for nearly 80% of service disruptions. Other factors such as congestion, equipment theft, and natural disasters, accounted for 13.9% of disruptions. In the first quarter of the current year, telcos recorded 577 network outages, with 361 of them directly caused by fibre cuts.
For the short-changed subscribers, the push for compensation is certainly a good thing. It conveys the unambiguous resolve of the regulator to ensure that telecommunications operators not only live to their billings, but also guarantee the subscriber value for every kobo spent.
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Yet, the devil, as it is often the case, lies in the details. It says, for instance, that subscribers do not need to submit claims. This implies that the burden of determining network performance across locations and service disruptions against Quality of Service (QoS) KPIs would solely be on the operators. It says specifically that only prolonged or repeated service failures falling below regulatory thresholds will qualify and that past outages before November 2025 are excluded; and that exceptional circumstances such as fibre cuts, vandalism, theft, or natural disasters will be reviewed before compensation is granted.
In all, the NCC says that operators may still face regulatory fines in addition to compensation for severe or repeated service failures. “Compliance”, it said, “will be monitored, and the commission may conduct independent audits through reputable audit firms”.
That is certainly reassuring. Yet, much as the regulator could claim to have its heart in the right place in setting out the rules and the guidelines for qualification, that part of the process would seem the easier part.
The other part, more challenging, is how the process is implemented. Given not just the complexity of the task involved, but the sheer volume of data most likely to be thrown up, it comes basically to ensuring that the process guarantees fairness and equity for all. Nigerians surely will have to rely on the assurances of NCC for proper monitoring and independent audits if and whenever it becomes necessary.
Finally, on the now prevalent source of service degradation – the epidemic of fibre-cuts; it is high time the industry, the security agencies and the governments (federal, states and local), came together to fashion a way out of the crisis.
