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Benchmarking: Congolese regulator understudies Nigeria’s telecoms market

Seated L-R: Engr. Bako Wakil, Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity at NCC; Benjamin Mouandza, Director, Networks and Electronic Communications Services, CTRA; Ephraim Nwokonneya, Director of Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement; and Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, Director of Public Affairs of NCC. Standing L-R: Ibrahim Galadima, Assistant Director, Special Duties at NCC, Mr. Dorcia Kounduola, Head of Analysis and Operations Office of CTRA; Mr. Ghislain Louvouezo of Traffic Management & Control Department, CTRA; Mr. Narcisse Kiouari of Telecommunications International Affairs at CTRA and Ismail Giwa, Assistant Director, Special Duties of NCC, at NCC Headquarters, Abuja, FCT Photo: NCC

*The Nigerian Communications Commission shares its regulatory experience with the visiting team, who was in the country to understudy the Commission’s policies, practices and programmes

*The experience has been very rich; we have learnt many things  ─Benjamin Mouandza, Network Director of Congo-Brazzaville Telecommunications Regulations Authority

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

Operational excellence and regulatory efficiency have become the hallmark of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) as Africa’s foremost telecoms regulator, and this engaging attribute has continued to attract the attention of other regulatory authorities on the African continent.

ConsumerConnect reports this was demonstrated recently when a delegation from the Congo-Brazzaville Telecommunications Regulations Authority (CTRA) visited the NCC on a benchmarking tour of the West African country.

Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman and CEO of NCC

Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, Director of Public Affairs of NCC, Wednesday, December 22, 2021, in Abuja, FCT, stated that the delegation from the central African country purposively paid a scheduled visit to NCC.

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The Nigerian telecoms regulator noted the visiting team’s visit was essentially to understudy the Commission’s policies, practices and programmes that have made it a model telecommunications regulatory authority in Africa and beyond.

Adinde disclosed the Congolese team, led by Benjamin Mouandza, Network Director at CTRA, spent three days at the NCC Head Office, in Abuja, where the delegation was exposed to key result-oriented regulatory activities, frameworks, programmes and policies of NCC.

Objective of CTRA’s visit to NCC

The objective of the visit was to explore how such operational frameworks at NCC could be adapted by the African country noted for its huge rainforest reserves, stated the Commission.

According to NCC, the Congloese regulator, in a letter to Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (EVC/CEO), had indicated interest to gain more insights into three areas of NCC’s regulatory activities.

READ ALSO: Sierra Leonean Telecoms Regulator At NCC For Benchmarking On Policies, QoS, Others│ConsumerConnect

These are management of issues associated with Quality of Service (QoS), SIM Boxing and Call Masking, as well as telecoms equipment type-approval process.

The NCC Director of Public Affairs noted that in response to CTRA’s request, Prof. Danbatta had graciously accepted to host the team and further directed relevant departments of NCC, including Special Duties (SD); Technical Standards and Network Integrity (TSNI); and the Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement (CME) Directorates to interact with the team to provide necessary information-sharing that may be useful to the Congolese counterpart on arrival in Nigeria.

KPIs, Quality of Service, QoE and consumer experience

Addressing the CTRA team in Abuja, Engr. Bako Wakil, FNSE, NCC’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity (TSNI), spoke extensively on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) instituted by NCC on QoS and how these KPIs are measured and monitored by the Commission towards ensuring improved service delivery to the Nigeria’s ever-growing telecoms consumers.

RELATED: NCC’s Policy Engagement With Stakeholders For Quality Consumer Experience, Says Danbatta

Wakil explained this has also helped to improve Quality of Experience (QoE) of the consumers in the country.

The visiting CTRA team on a tour of NCC

On type-approval process, Wakil further stated that the Commission had developed a rigorous type-approval process to ensure that telecoms equipment, including terminal devices, manufactured in line with international standards and specifications, are brought into Nigeria.

The NCC Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity said: “NCC is serious about type-approval process like other processes, because non-type approved devices and equipment which are also not manufactured to international standards and specifications have negative implications for quality of service delivery on the networks.”

Menace of call masking and SIM boxing fraud

In his address to the Congolese team, Engr. Wakil also spoke extensively on call masking and highlighted measures the Commission has put in place to address the menace.

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According to him, call masking is “the practice of sending international calls to an operator but disguising the calls as if they were local by sending the calls on the local interconnect route with a local number in the national numbering plan instead of the original international calling number.”

In a related presentation to the visiting team on SIM boxing fraud and the NCC’s efforts at combating the menace, Ephraim Nwokonneya, Director of CME at NCC, spoke on the problems created by fraudulent practice of SIM Boxing, including threat to national security, loss of revenue to service providers and the Nigerian Government. Additionally, he asserted the anti-competitive practices associated with such acts among licensees as well as the general economic implications so evident in revenue loss.

However, Nwokonneya itemised solutions to SIM Boxing fraud from a regulatory perspective.

The Director also declared that regulators can deploy anti-SIM boxing and call masking solutions, be proactive, and effective in monitoring and enforcement, collaboration with the industry and law enforcement agencies, capacity building through training and skill acquisition programmes, as well as the review of the Enforcement Regulations and enabling laws.

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The Nigerian telecoms sector regulator further noted that Nwokonneya told the Congolese CTRA that collaboration between the regulator and the industry is required to effectively combat the menace of SIMBox Fraud, Call Masking and Call Refiling in conjunction with deployment of technological solution and well-trained staff.

“From the presentations, it was made clear that the scale of call masking and SIMBoxing has been on the downward decline in Nigeria, while the number of complaints from subscribers on incorrectly displayed calling numbers has also reduced substantially,” NCC said.

In order to prove that NCC’s processes emplaced to combat the menace are succeeding, Nwokonneya as well stated there has been a significant and noticeable improvement in the display of correct international calling numbers into Nigerian networks.

SIM Registration and NIN-SIM linkage policy in Nigeria

The regulatory Commission stated: “The NCC Directors also reiterated that the Commission is also taking strategic actions on SIM Registration, the National Identification Number (NIN) and the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) linkage policy.

RELATED: NCC Warns Telecoms Consumers Against Linking Their NINs To Other Subscribers’ SIM Cards

“The NCC team informed the visitors that a maximum of four SIM numbers are permissible to be registered per subscriber per network requirement.

“This is another measure deployed by the NCC to tackle SIMBoxing which usually requires multiple SIMs to flourish.”

The NCC team emphasised that the combination of regulatory action and deployment of technology solutions have helped to put the menace of call masking and SIMBoxing in the Nigeria’s telecoms sector under check, Dr. Adinde said.

We’re more positioned to replicate things learnt, says CTRA’s Mouandza

Commenting on the benefits of the visit, CTRA’s Mouandza was quoted to have said the choice made by the Congolese regulator to visit NCC on a benchmarking tour has been worthwhile.

Mouandza noted: “We have come to understand how the regulator in Nigeria has been handling some salient regulatory issues and matters in the country as it relates to telecoms.

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“In the course of this visit, I can say that our objective has been achieved. The experience has been very rich, we have learnt many things.

“We thank the EVC and his team for accepting to host us. We are more positioned now to replicate some of the things we have learnt in our telecoms market back home.”

The telecoms regulator further stated the Congolese officials had practical demonstrations of the issues earlier discussed, especially the nature of technologies that have been deployed by the NCC to independently and remotely monitor, measure and validate QoS on the networks of mobile operators in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Commission has recalled the visit by the Congolese team came barely a month after the NCC hosted officials from Sierra Leone’s National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM), who equally visited NCC to benchmark the Nigerian telecoms regulator’s policies, programmes and regulatory activities.

The country’s telecoms regulator said over the years, the NCC has constantly received delegations from telecoms regulators in Africa, and the trend has remained a major boost for Nigeria’s global ranking as a model in telecommunications regulation.

Adinde added that these benchmarking visits have eloquently reinforced the NCC leadership status in operational efficiency, collaborative partnership, and commitment to intra-African solidarity in the telecommunications sphere.

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