MTN Nigeria Communications Ltd was issued a query yesterday by the regulatory agency – the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) – over poor services provided the public by the telecommunications service provider.
In the query jointly signed by NCC’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity and Director of Legal Services, MTN was asked to explain why it should not be punished for “the unbearable poor quality of services in Lagos and its environs.”
In the letter, NCC also alleged that MTN’s switch in Lagos had been down for some time and the service provider did not inform NCC or its subscribers as required by the regulatory guidelines.
The NCC gave MTN a 24-hour ultimatum to furnish it with a detailed report on the developments and efforts being made to urgently address the problem, failing which the Commission would invoke appropriate sanctions on MTN.
The letter explained that the query was in line with NCC’s mandate and commitment to enforce all sactions as prescribed by a new regulation on quality of service in the networks.
But in a swift reaction yesterday, MTN Nigeria’s General Manager, Corporate Communications, Funmi Omogbenigun, said the telecommunications outfit sent messages to both the regulator and the its teeming subscribers through Twitter and Facebook as well as radio announcements and SMS immediately the disruption to service occurred.
In addition, she added, “a letter was sent to the NCC on May 2 informing them of the incident. All our messages to our customers contained an explanation and full apologies”.
She concluded that that service was fully restored on Friday and apologized on behalf of the company “to our valuable customers once more.”