by Isi Esene

The Senate Committee on Communications has threatened telecommunications service providers in Nigeria to improve on their service delivery or leave the country. This was necessitated by the lingering poor quality of service experienced by subscribers.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Communications, Sen. Gil Emeka Nnaji, said the Senate was ready to invoke the necessary legislative provisions to compel the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) service providers to improve on their service or be made to face unsavoury consequences.

Nnaji noted that the committee’s action is due to the feedback received from subscribers over incessant cases of dropped calls, bad network reception, and unexplained deductions of airtime.

He said: “The Senate as a responsive and socially-responsible institution, after series of interactive sessions towards addressing the lingering public outcry, subsequently decided to ascertain the level of culpability or otherwise of these network service providers on these issues with a view to advising the plenary appropriately.”

The legislative officer, Public Relations to Senator Nnaji, Mr. Egbo Mon-Charles in a statement revealed that the NCC is in partnership with authorities of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for the provision of more telecommunication tower sites in Abuja with a view to improving the quality of service in the FCT and its environs.

According to the Vanguard Newspapers, he also revealed that based on the records made available to the regulatory body, MTN was the only telecoms operator making profit. He also noted that the apparent low quality of telecoms service is caused by the lack of enabling regulations to enforce compliance on the operators.

With this news, Abuja residents can look forward to better network quality and reduced cases of dropped calls… but why only Abuja?