The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said its recent audit of all the mobile networks in Nigeria shows that there is no major issue of data depletion contrary to claims and complaints by subscribers.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Aminu Maida, stated this while reviewing the activities of the telecom regulator in 2024.
He, however, noted that the audit, which was concluded in Q3 2024, showed that there were minor issues on the networks, which the regulator is currently working to address.
“We had a hypothesis that it isn’t true that there is a data depletion issue in the industry. It could be perception.
“So the first thing we did was that we immediately conducted a billing audit on the systems of the major MNOs, using reputable auditors. That exercise was completed in Q3 of this year and surprisingly, we didn’t find any major issues,” he said.
NIN-SIM linkage exercise
Maida said another major milestone for the telecom regulator in the year was the conclusion of the implementation of the federal government’s policy on the linkage of National Identification Number (NIN) with SIMs.
- According to him, this exercise provides a lot of opportunities for the digital economy and the national security of the nation.
- He added that with the conclusion of the implementation, every single SIM card in the country is now linked to a verified NIN.
- He said the linkage now gives the telecom regulator a very strong foundation from a security perspective to work with law enforcement agencies and reliably give them the information of who owns what.
- Maida emphasized that more importantly, the linkage gives Nigeria a foundation for the digital economy to build on.
“You would agree with me that almost every transaction we perform today, in one way or the other, links back to your mobile number, whether it is your e-commerce or whether it is your registration for JAMB, or just generally any service that wants to reach you for customer support.
“So having the ability to be able to clearly identify who knows what would instill a lot of confidence and integrity in the system, which would lay the right foundations for the digital economy,” the EVC said.
What you should know
The compulsory linkage of NIN with SIM began in December 2020 when the government directed telecommunication companies to bar unregistered SIM cards and SIMs that were not linked to NIN.
- However, several deadlines were fixed until August this year when the NCC fixed a final deadline of September 14 for not just linking but also verification of all NINs linked with SIMs.
- Before that, many telecom subscribers/consumers were unable to make or receive phone calls between July 28 and 29, as the telecom operators barred millions of lines ahead of the July 31 earlier fixed by the regulator.
- This, however, led to chaos as many subscribers that besieged the telcos stores went violent. The action also coincided with a planned nationwide protest scheduled for August 1 to 10.
- This prompted the NCC to make a U-turn, by ordering all telecommunication companies in the country to reactivate all lines they had barred.
The telecom regulator later announced a final deadline of September 14, for all lines to be linked with verified NIN, after which all unlinked or unverified lines were blocked.