The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has declared that any telecoms company in the country that fails to provide a free instant SMS call bill to all subscribers from the 1st of November, 2012, will be fined the sum of N5 million as sanction.
The regulator further warned that a further sum of N500,000 per day will be charged as long as the contravention persists.
This was announced by the NCC on Wednesday, in a statement signed by NCC’s Head of Media and Public Relations, Reuben Muoka, on Wednesday, mandating all telecom operators to provide instant SMS service to all phone users at the end of every call.
The statement warned that the SMS “must provide full details of the cost of each call, and available balances to the subscriber.” This NCC explains is a move to curb subscriber complaints over billing irregularities.
“This service is free to all subscribers with the commencement date for all the operators fixed for November 1, 2012” the statement adds, warning that “any operator which fails to commence the service to its subscribers will be liable to fine in the sum of N5,000,000 (Five Million) as sanction and a further sum of N500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira) per day as long as the contravention persists.”
The Commission had in an earlier direction issued on August 2012 “that from 1st of November, 2012, all mobile operators shall send free of charge, a message or an alert to both post-paid and prepaid subscribers after every call, SMS, or system generated charge or tariff, with a provison that a subscriber can opt out if he or she so wishes”.
The Direction mandates the subscribers to send messages containing six critical information including: Exact duration of the Call Minutes and Seconds, Total Cost for each Call or SMS; Customer Accounts Balance after the last call for prepaid and SMS; Customer Account Balance after a charge or tariff and the reason for the charge or tariff; Cumulative call charges up to the last call within the charging period for post-paid customers; Cost of services and Credit balance upon request by customer for data service.
The NCC claims the direction issued to the telecoms operators is in line with the provisions of Section 53(1) of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003.
“This direction is a response to one of the major concerns of the subscribers as it relates to the actual amounts deducted from their credit balances by the service providers for each call or SMS sent. “
“With this direction, subscribers are empowered to promptly discover any anomaly in their bills, and will be able to prove if they are billed for calls that they did not make” the statement concluded.
