The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has directed telecom operators to notify consumers of significant service disruptions via media platforms.
The directive stated that affected consumers are to receive proportional compensation, including extensions of service validity, under the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.
According to a statement by Nnenna Ukoha, Acting Head of Public Affairs at the NCC, operators are expected to disclose the cause of the outage, the affected areas, and the estimated time for service restoration.
This move is part of the Commission’s efforts to ensure the timely resolution of service outages, improve the quality of the consumer experience, and keep users well-informed.
NCC’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Edoyemi Ogor, stated, “The Commission has trialled the reporting process and portal with operators for some months now before issuing the directive.
“By providing consumers and stakeholders in the telecommunications industry with timely and transparent information on network outages, we are entrenching a culture of accountability and transparency.
“This approach also ensures that culprits are held responsible for sabotage to telecommunications infrastructure.”
NCC stated that consumers must also be informed one week in advance of where operators have planned service outages.
“This also aligns with our broader commitment to the effective implementation of the Executive Order signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which designates telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII),” Ogor stated.
“It reinforces the need to safeguard these assets, given their centrality to national security, economic stability, and the everyday lives of Nigerians.”
Mobile Network Operators, Internet Service Providers, and other operators that provide last-mile services will also provide proportional compensation, including extension of validity, as may be applicable and in line with the provisions of the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations, where any major network outage continues for more than 24 hours.
The Commission identifies three categories of major outages. These include: any network-related issue, such as fibre cuts due to construction, access restrictions, theft, vandalism, or force majeure, that affects five percent or more of the operator’s subscriber base or impacts five or more Local Government Areas (LGAs).
Another category involves unplanned outages or complete isolation of network resources at 100 or more sites, or at least five percent of the total number of sites (whichever is lower), or the loss of one cluster for 30 minutes or more.
The final category covers any outage that significantly degrades network quality in the top 10 states with the highest traffic volume, as determined periodically by the Commission.
The Commission has mandated that all major outages be reported by operators via its Major Outage Reporting Portal, which is publicly accessible through the Commission’s website. The portal also reveals the cause of each reported disruption.
