NCC’s compensation order: subscribers yet to get refund

President of the group, Hon Sina Bilesanmi, in a telephone interview yesterday lamented that the development was capable of eroding trust between the MNOs, regulator and the subscribers.

“We are shocked that almost five days after the NCC assured us that we will get refunds by way of airtime, none of the MNOs has done anything. As an implementation monitoring measure, we posted it on all our WhatsApp group platforms, about 100 of such groups, nobody has announced receiving airtime refund. We find it shocking because we believed the NCC.

“Remember too that the directive was issued a long time ago and we waited patiently only for our waiting to almost be in vain,” he said.

Another subscriber in Ekiti, Chief Dele Ojo, said he has not received any refund. He said he also read it in the newspapers that NCC ordered the service providers to compensate customers for poor service quality. “I read it in the papers and all the radio stations celebrated the story. I have not received any compensation as at today. Neither has my wife nor my children,” he said.

Providing further clarification on the implementation of the compensation, Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity at the Commission, Edoyemi Ogoh, had said the compensation shall be in form airtime which beneficiaries could use to make voice calls or buy data. He said QoS were measured during the months of November, December, and June 2026. He said the Commission now assesses service quality in local government areas whether it complied with the KPIs set by the Commission.

Ogoh said compensation to subscribers will not be a flat rate for everyone but based on the average airtime purchase and economic value of the purchase during the compensation period. This implies that subscribers that spend an average of N1000 should not expect a compensation that is equal to that of someone that spends N10,000.

NCC had directed the MNOs to provide compensation to subscribers whose network QoS experience is below specified targets within specific locations.

The Commission’s position is that subscribers should not be made to bear the full burden of service disruptions where operators fail to meet prescribed standards of service delivery.

Under this directive, erring operators will compensate affected users directly for breaches of QoS Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

MNOs, the NCC said, shall be required to pay these compensations for instances of poor QoS recorded within specified time frames.

MTN Nigeria had expressed willingness to comply with the NCC’s directive, stressing that its customers are the lifeblood of its business. “We exist to connect Nigerians to the digital world, and we believe that every subscriber deserves a reliable, high-quality network experience. “It is with this customer-first mindset that we view the recent directive from the NCC, regarding subscriber compensation.

“The directive once again places customers at the centre of regulatory decision-making.

“All consumers within the affected areas where service shortfalls were recorded will receive compensation for the operating periods of November, December, and January, in accordance with the applicable framework.

“While we remain fully committed to this compensation process, our ultimate objective is to consistently deliver high quality services to our valued customers and work with partners to address challenges and eliminate service disruptions,” MTN Nigeria said in a statement yesterday.

MTN said it will continue to drive an aggressive Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) rollout, adding that its renewed efforts include: accelerated infrastructure upgrades: Investing heavily in next-generation equipment to boost network capacity and accommodate growing data and voice demands; enhanced network resilience: Fortifying our infrastructure against environmental and third-party disruptions to ensure consistent uptime; and collaborative ecosystem investments: orking closely with our Tower Company partners to ensure critical mast infrastructure meets the rigorous, measurable outcomes required for world-class service delivery.

“While calling on consumers to understand that we are operating within the larger ecosystem, fraught with challenges that are mostly outside our control, we remain steadfast and fully committed to working closely with our tower providers, NCC and other stakeholders including law enforcement agencies. We will continue to invest heavily for the long-term to sustainably power Nigeria’s digital economy for generations to come,” the telco said.