Lagos and Uyo — Although Nigeria's telecommunications market may have witnessed about 70 per cent reduction in prices of telecoms services since the revolution started about 13 years ago, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that this portends danger for further growth of the industry.
Besides, the NCC said this is gradually reducing the country's telecoms sector competitiveness globally.
As such, to stem this trend and increase the sectors contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah said the commission is intervening in two major ways.
Already, the Information and Communications Technology sector is said to be contributing about nine per cent to the country's GDP, with the telecommunications arm growing 30 per cent on a yearly basis.
Juwah, while fielding questions from journalists on the sideline of the recently launched code of corporate governance for the telecommunications sector in Lagos, last week, said one area the NCC was looking at to reposition the sector was through the launched corporate governance code and secondly by advocating a shift from voice telephony to broadband services.
The NCC EVC, who said the telecoms sector, is very critical to the country's economy, reiterated that by August, the commission shall licence infrastructure companies (Infracos), expected to raise the bar in the sector, by championing the spread of broadband services across the country.
"The sector is fast stabilizing compared to some years back, However, people don't know that the prices of telecoms service is reducing. The huge competitition in the sector has brought down prices drastically. There has been about 70 per cent reduction since the revolution started, which has had a disastrouse effect on the sector because the value of the industry has gone down.
"We are intervening in two different ways. Firstly by instituting the code of corporate goverance for the sector, and secondly we are advocating a shift from voice services to broadband. This has necessitated our intervention in developing licenses for Infrastrucrure Companies (InfraCos). This will be a major shift in the telecoms sector growth", Juwah stated.
According to him, these two areas to be explored by NCC will raise the value of the sector and increase its contribution to GDP, far more that its current position.
Meanwhile, in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom state, at the weekend, the commission sealed off the premises of one TB Links telecommunications and Security Systems Company located at no 77 Aka Etinan road.
The Assistant Director, Enforcement, NCC, Salisu Abdu, who disclosed this to newsmen in Uyo, said the telecommunications company premises was sealed for breaching the law of the NCC by providing telecommunication services illegally without obtaining the necessary license from the commission.
His words "The NCC as you know is the independent regulator of telecommunication industry in Nigeria and one of its functions is issuance of telecommunication license and also monitoring and enforcing license terms and conditions.
"In one of our monitoring exercise in April, 2014, TB Links Telecommunications and security system limited and Mark 2 limited were detected to have been providing public mobile communication, vehicle tracking service illegally. One of the functions of NCC is monitoring the activity of operators in addition to surveillance exercise. So it was through surveillance exercise that we discovered that TB Links limited and Marc 2 are doing illegal operation of vehicle tracking.
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