In Nigeria, the place the inhabitants is increasing rapidly and the telecommunications trade is flourishing, it’s essential for service suppliers to ensure transparency in name charges and information consumption. ROYAL IBEH explores the current steerage for the simplification of tariff plans, bundles and promotional actions.
The previous 20 years have seen a notable growth in Nigeria‘s telecom trade. For example, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed that the nation had about 219 million lively cell subscriptions in Q1 2024.
Main telecom operators, together with MTN, Airtel, Glo, and 9mobile, dominate the market, providing varied information and name packages to cater to the various wants of shoppers.
Regardless of this development, the sector faces challenges concerning transparency in information and name tariffs. Customers typically specific considerations about unclear pricing, hidden fees, and the standard of service. These points have led to a stage of lack of belief between shoppers and repair suppliers, finally hindering the sector‘s improvement.
Challenges
For example shoppers have raised the problem of advanced tariff construction, (as many telecom operators supply a variety of plans with various prices, information limits, and validity intervals), which has made it troublesome for them to match plans and select probably the most appropriate one.
Some customers have reported sudden deductions from their credit score for companies they didn’t explicitly request, whereas some have lamented poor High quality of Service (QoS), which embrace poor community protection and web pace.
Nonetheless, some shoppers had complained of ignorance as they don’t seem to be totally conscious of their rights and the regulatory framework governing the telecommunications sector.
Unveiling new steerage
As effort to addressing these challenges, the NCC just lately issued steerage for the telecom operators mandating them to supply sufficient data to the subscribers on how they’re being charged for every name and information consumed.
This Steering is pursuant to the regulatory powers of the Fee below Sections 3, 108 and 109 of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 (Act) in addition to related subsidiary legislations empowering the Fee in that regard. It’s also in furtherance of the mandate of the Fee to manage communications companies and guarantee client safety within the sector.
The Steering titled: ‘Steering for the Simplification of Tariffs’, seeks to reinforce transparency, enhance client understanding, and foster truthful competitors amongst its licensees.
In line with the Fee, the Steering applies to all licensees of the Fee and its main targets is to cut back the complexity of tariff plans and bundles; make sure that promotional components of tariff plans are clear and truthful; shield shoppers’ pursuits by offering clear and comprehensible tariff data and promote truthful competitors amongst licensees by standardizing tariff constructions.
Ample data on tariffs
The Fee within the steerage, which took impact on July 29, 2024, highlighted that full disclosure of all tariff elements and circumstances is obligatory, whereas urging operators to make sure that all advertising and marketing and promotional supplies are clear and understandable.
For example, part 4.4 of the steerage mentioned each operator is required to publish on its web site, a desk exhibiting traits of every tariff plan and bundle it provides. “The desk should show all data which is critical to allow the subscriber to make a comparability between the provided tariff plan and others, and thereby make an knowledgeable alternative.
“All promoting supplies should make full disclosure of all tariff and different elements relevant to the plan in accordance with the provisions of the License Circumstances, the Client Code of Apply Rules and the Pointers on Promotional Commercial.
“Different tariff communications ought to be offered in clear language and a user-friendly format in accordance with the provisions of the Fee’s Client Code of Apply Rules and different relevant regulatory devices,” it added.
For the USSD platform, the Fee averred that at any time when a subscriber requests their account steadiness by way of the *310#, the response should embrace data equivalent to Title of Plan and Validity Interval (if relevant); fee per second (and fee per minute) on-net/off-net; fee per megabyte/kilobyte/gigabyte; and fee per SMS on-net/off-net.
The Fee, in Part 4.5, mentioned operators should supply standalone information bundles, at truthful costs to keep away from tying shoppers with merchandise they don’t want, including that bonuses on promotions should be acknowledged in precise worth and entry charges and uneven price constructions should be eradicated.
For all tariff plans, the Fee mentioned each the principle and bonus accounts should deplete at charges inside stipulated worth flooring and caps; bundles with shorter validity intervals ought to be prioritized for depletion and choices for subscribers who exhaust their bundle allowance inside the stipulated validity interval ought to embrace buy of a top-up bundle, buy of a brand new bundle, and change to the default fee of his/her plan.
On the variety of tariff plan and bundle an operator can supply, part 4.3 stipulated that, the variety of tariff plans provided per operator is restricted to seven and the variety of bundles provided per operator is restricted to 100. “There are not any limitations to the variety of Add-ons a subscriber can opt-into. Nevertheless, every operator will need to have in place a mechanism that informs subscribers of the variety of Add-ons they’ve on the level of buying one other Add-on. Subscribers should be capable to test (by way of USSD string, SMS) the variety of Add-ons bought,” it added.
Client training
Operators should implement client training campaigns to tell subscribers about tariff simplification, their rights, and the way to make knowledgeable selections concerning their plans, the Fee acknowledged, including that instructional supplies ought to be made obtainable in a number of codecs and languages to make sure broad accessibility.
“Operators should notify subscribers of any modifications to their tariff plans, together with migration to new plans, no less than 30 days prematurely. Notifications should be clear, stating the explanations for modifications, the advantages of recent plans, and any actions required from subscribers,” the Fee affirmed.
To make sure information transparency, the Fee, in part 6.2 of the steerage acknowledged that operators are required to submit quarterly stories to the Fee detailing the variety of lively tariff plans, bundles, and promotions and stories should embrace subscriber uptake, utilization patterns, and suggestions.
On the problem of QoS, the Fee (in part 6.3) mentioned compliance with requirements and Key Efficiency Indicators (KPIs) set out in QoS rules is obligatory, stating that any degradation in service high quality resulting from tariff modifications or promotions should be addressed instantly. Operators should report QoS metrics as a part of their quarterly submissions, it added.
Timelines and deadlines
The Fee asserted that operators should align their choices with this Steering inside 90 days from the date of issuance, including that transition plans for current tariffs should be submitted on or earlier than twelfth August, 2024.
On approval timeframes, the Fee mentioned it would overview and reply to submissions inside ten working days. Tariff approval and modification functions should embrace complete disclosure types detailing all points of the tariff, it added.
Sanction
Part 6.5 addresses the problem of compliance and enforcement, even because the Fee mentioned it would conduct periodic audits and inspections to make sure compliance with this Steering. “Non-compliance will lead to penalties, together with fines, suspension of tariff approvals, or different regulatory actions as set out within the Act, associated regulatory devices and the subsisting Enforcement Course of Rules,” it acknowledged.
The Fee nonetheless known as on all Cell Community Operators (MNOs) to use these guidelines of their entirety to all retail merchandise provided to particular person subscribers (each pay as you go and postpaid). Different classes of Licensees are nonetheless required to use solely the disclosure necessities and transparency template in addition to the circumstances for tariff approvals, it added.
