The N20bn interconnection indebtedness among telecoms operators in the country is already causing a rift in the industry, according to stakeholders familiar with the situation
Speaking during the ‘Regulatory forum on the high incidence of interconnection indebtedness in the Nigerian telecommunications industry’ organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission, stakeholders said the situation also constituted serious threat to healthy competition in the industry.
They lamented that many of the smaller operators, especially the Code Division Multiple Access companies, were hugely indebted to their Global System for Mobile communication counterparts.
Aside the CDMA operators, the fixed line networks were also said to owe a large percentage of the debt.
The Regulatory Affairs Manager, Globacom, Mr. Tunde Aremu, who commented on the N20bn interconnection debt among telecoms firms, said operators owed each other huge sums for interconnectivity, stressing that the issue of interconnection required urgent intervention from the NCC.
In the same vein, the General Manager, Regulatory Affairs, MTN Nigeria, Ms. Oyeronke Oyetunde, said the huge debt running into billions of naira was currently affecting the sector.
Aremu and Oyetunde both said this would affect the growth of the telecoms industry if nothing was done.
Telecoms analysts said some creditor operators might have decided to disconnect their debtor counterparts on the account of huge indebtedness being owed them.
Legal experts, however, warned that mediation and arbitration should be explored before a network would be disconnected, adding that migration of traffic and debt settlement through an interconnect clearing exchange must be given priority.
A Partner in the legal firm of Banwo & Ighodalo, Mrs. Abimbola Akeredolu, said, “Interconnect indebtedness in the Nigerian telecommunications sector is currently put at about N20bn.”
She said about 60 per cent of the debt was disputed, as many operators alleged that the figures were inflated and blamed their competitors’ faulty billing systems.
Akeredolu said the large volume of interconnect debt in the Nigerian telecommunications sector was often linked to sharp difference in revenue sharing ratios between mobile operators and other operators such as landline network owners and fixed wireless operators.
She said, “The feeling in the industry is that if the situation persists whereby GSM companies are better favoured than the fixed and wireless operators, such a situation will continue to lead to interconnectivity debt or breakage.
“In practice, the revenue sharing ratio between mobile and fixed network is 14:6 and 12:8, depending on which network is terminating or originating the call. Fixed and landline operators are asking that parity be introduced with growing argument that all networks face equal challenges.”
As a result, the stakeholders called on the NCC to intervene before the issue got out of hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment