Mr Tony Ojobo, the Director of Public Affairs, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) on Wednesday said the commission was consulting widely with stakeholders on data floor price.
Ojobo said this in Abuja while briefing newsmen on the recent increase and suspension of the price of data.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on Nov. 29, some telecom service providers sent messages to their subscribers that NCC was planning to increase data tariff.
The announcement elicited wide criticisms from subscribers including the National Assembly, which prompted the commission to issue a statement on the suspension of the data price increase.
“In order for us not to have failure and to have good quality data services, there is need for intervention by the regulator.
“And what we have said is that it has been suspended for now, the commission is going to undertake a study and consult widely with all stakeholders before a final decision is taken,’’ he said.
Ojobo said that in terms of pricing, Nigeria was not doing badly, adding that “NCC is responsible and responsive to it duty’’.
He said that the commission was also looking at the benchmark across other African countries on how they regulate theirs before fixing the floor price.
Ojobo said that the world had gone internet, therefore there was need for huge investment to ensure that the country enjoyed these services.
“The operator pays for the bandwidth it gets and it are going below the cost price, then something is wrong.
“And it will bring a distraction and contribute to market failure, so it is important we understand all these,’’ he said.
Mrs Josephine Amuwa, the Director of Policy and Economic Analysis said that the commission carried out a cost study to determine the situation on ground and what could be done as regards data floor.
“We carried out a benchmarking in African countries to see what was happening and the cost of data services in these countries and in all these consultations, we involved operators.
“We wrote to them to start a consultation for price floor and all those to be involved in it and they wrote to us for the need for a price floor.
“And we had consultation with 28 operators on Oct. 19, later it was left for NCC to take the decision and we decided that 90 kobo was an appropriate interim figure.
“Somebody who is paying N5 will pay 90k and somebody who is paying 45k will pay 90k, it then balance out and that is why we introduce a price floor.
“We have gone back to our cost study to see how fast we can fast track it, we cannot do without it because we don’t want the industry to fail,’’ she said. (NAN)