NCC orders Telcos to notify consumers of service disruptions, provide compensation

The directive stated that affected consumers were to receive proportional compensation, including extensions of service validity, in accordance with the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.

According to 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.

Ukoha said that the move was part of the commission’s efforts to ensure timely resolution of service outages, improve the quality of consumer experience, and keep users well-informed.

The NCC’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Edoyemi Ogor, said, “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 also said operators were required to provide proportional compensation, including extension of validity, for major network outages lasting over 24 hours.

It also noted that consumers must also be informed one week in advance of 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),” he said.

The NCC had mandated that all major outages be reported via its Major Outage Reporting Portal, which is publicly accessible through the commission’s website.

The portal revealed the cause of each reported disruption.

The Commission identifies three categories of major outages, including network-related issues affecting a significant number of subscribers or areas, unplanned outages impacting multiple sites, and outages degrading network quality in high-traffic states.

The NCC’s directive aimed  to ensure timely resolution of service outages, improve consumer experience, and promote accountability and transparency in the telecommunications industry.

Ogor emphasised, “It reinforces the need to safeguard these assets, given their centrality to national security, economic stability, and the everyday lives of Nigerians.”