The Nigerian Communications Commission has issued a directive requiring telecommunications operators to promptly inform customers of significant service disruptions through various media platforms.
The move aims to enhance transparency and improve consumer experience in Nigeria’s telecom sector.
Under the new directive, operators must disclose the cause of any outage, specify affected areas, and provide an estimated timeline for service restoration.
Additionally, impacted customers are entitled to proportional compensation, such as extended service validity periods, in line with the NCC’s Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.
In a statement on Sunday, the acting Head of Public Affairs at the NCC, Nnenna Ukoha, emphasized that the policy is part of the commission’s broader efforts to ensure timely resolution of service disruptions and maintain high standards of consumer satisfaction.
The NCC’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Edoyemi Ogor, stated, “The Commission has trialled the reporting process and portal with operators for some months now before issuing the directive.
“By providing consumers and stakeholders in the telecommunications industry with timely and transparent information on network outages, we are entrenching a culture of accountability and transparency.
“This approach also ensures that culprits are held responsible for sabotage to telecommunications infrastructure ”
NCC stated that telecom operators must notify consumers at least one week in advance before any planned service outage.
“This also aligns with our broader commitment to the effective implementation of the Executive Order signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which designates telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII),” Ogor stated.
“It reinforces the need to safeguard these assets, given their centrality to national security, economic stability, and the everyday lives of Nigerians.”
Mobile Network Operators, Internet Service Providers, and other last-mile service providers are required to offer proportional compensation—such as validity extensions—when a major network outage lasts longer than 24 hours. This must be done in accordance with the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.
The commission defines major outages under three categories, including any network-related disruption—like fibre cuts from construction, access restrictions, theft, vandalism, or force majeure—that affects at least five percent of an operator’s subscribers or impacts five or more Local Government Areas .
Another category involves unplanned outages or complete isolation of network resources at 100 or more sites, or at least five percent of the total number of sites or the loss of one cluster for 30 minutes or more.
The final category covers any outage that significantly degrades network quality in the top 10 states with the highest traffic volume, as determined periodically by the Commission.
