Stakeholders from public and private sectors at Federal and State levels are set for the third quarter seminar series being organised by the Nigeria Information and Communication Technology Reporters’ Association.
The programme being sponsored by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and one of Nigeria’s leading telecoms companies, Airtel, will bring together industry stakeholders to brainstorm on the theme: “The Impact of Over-Regulation of Telecoms Industry on Service Quality.”
The event is scheduled to hold inside Osun Hall of the Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos on Friday, September 16, 2016 starting by 10 a.m.
The seminar will bring together industry regulators including the NCC, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) as well as representation from the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS) and ZInox Group, among others.
The one-day forum will be chaired by the Chairman of ALTON, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo.
The General Manager of Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Authority (LASIMRA), Mr. Jide Odekunle will be the keynote speaker at the event with Airtel Nigeria making another paper presentation on the theme of the event.
Telecoms subscribers are said to be losing a whopping N750 million annually to intermittent poor service quality such as call-drops, unfair billings, charges on Value Added Service (VAS) not subscribed to, among others.
NITRA President, Mr. Emma Okonji in a statement said that “Nigeria telecoms industry has grown significantly in the past 15 years in such a way that it is now regarded as one of the fastest-growing in the world. Nigerians telecoms has, indeed, witnessed exponential growth in the last 13 years moving from active subscriber base of 400,000 with teledensity of 0.004 per cent to active subscriber base of 149.8 million with teledensity of 107.01 per cent, as of June 2016 statistics,”.
He noted that despite the growth, more conducive regulatory environment needed to be provided for the network so as to be able to deliver quality service for their growing subscriber base.
“It is our belief that the forum will provide opportunities for industry stakeholders to dialogue on regulatory challenges facing the operators and their effects on the service delivery to the subscribers. It will also help in offering workable solutions for effective industry regulation that will bring about greater growth of the over $38 billion telecoms industry,” Okonji added.
