The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in its latest series of reviews in the telecoms industry has discovered that phone calls between MTN customers cost three times lower than calls to other networks.
According to the report: “This is indicative of the likely establishment of a calling club for MTN subscribers.”
NCC is insisting that MTN, which has about 44 per cent of the market, must cut the difference in price to create a level playing ground in the industry.
NCC’s website reveals that Nigeria is Africa’s fastest growing telecoms market with a population of 167 million people and has a subscriber base that is above 113 million at the end of 2012, with MTN leading the sector with over 47 million subscribers.
Similarly, Globacom had 24 million subscribers, Airtel 23 million customers while Etisalat had 14 million.
The report also showed that MTN and Globacom “jointly control about 62 per cent of the public terrestrial transmission infrastructure,” so thus, there is a great fear that they may “squeeze the margins of their competitors who are also their customers.”
“As a result of the determination outlined above, the Commission has resolved that the dominant Operators in the mobile voice market shall be required to adhere to the following obligations:
“Accounting Separation: The Commission will immediately enforce and implement Accounting Separation on the dominant operator.
“Collapse of On net and Off net Retail Tariffs: The differential between the on–net and off net retail tariffs will be immediately collapsed. The tariff for on net and off net will be the same, and subject to periodic review.
“Submission of Required Details: The Commission may require the dominant operator to submit details on specific aspects of its operations from time to time as the need may arise.”
The Commission will also move to determine pricing principle to address the rate charges for on-net and off-net calls for all other operators.
NCC said it will impose price cap/price floor for wholesale services and price floor for retail services which shall be subject to periodic review and “immediately enforce and implement accounting separation on the joint dominant operator.”
The regulator added that it may require any of the joint dominant operators to submit details on specific aspects of the operations from time to time as the need arises.
“The determination shall take effect from 1st May 2013 and remain valid and binding on licenses for the services specified in relevant market segment of this sector until further reviewed by the commission,” the NCC insisted.