Nigerian Telecommunications Commission has called on government to ensure adequate protection for infrastructures put in place by telecommunication companies at their sites.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Professor Umaru Danbatta appealed to both States and Local governments in the South-East to put an end to the high rate of vandalisation of telecommunication infrastructure put in place within the region by service providers.
Prof. Danbatta said, “There are reports that incidence of vandalisation of telecom infrastructure is very high in the South-East.
“This is (another) opportunity to call on the state, local governments and communities in the South-East to support the NCC by easing the right of way for the provision of telecom infrastructure, and be vigilant over such infrastructure,” he added.
He further appealed to the state governments in the region to stop multiple taxation of telecommunication operators and help the companies to ease the process of deployment of infrastructure.
Mr. Danbatta noted the “several issues confronting telecom consumers in Nigeria,” including drop calls, unsolicited text messages, billing complaints, automatic data subscriptions, Internet speed, location of masts among others, some of which he said was beyond the commission’s control.
He said, ”Some of the issues are beyond the control of the commission,” and others arise from “day to day usage by millions of subscribers across the national geographical spread.”
He identify poor power situation in the country as one issue that has affected telecommunication services in the country, the need to duplicate mobile base stations, including masts, towers, generating sets and other facilities were some other challenges in the provision of telecoms services.
