The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has opened up why it is usually silent on the types of technologies licensees can deploy to provide services to their consumers in Nigeria.
The country’s telecom regulator argued that once there are no negative socioeconomic impacts that would emanate from the technologies, it is usually not the Commission’s choice to tell operators the technology that must be deployed.
“The Nigerian Communications Commission is usually silent on types of technologies that Licensees deploy to provide their services to consumers once there are no negative socio-economic impacts, “Engineer Bako Wakil, NCC’s Head of Technical Standards and Network Integrity told stakeholders at the 2nd Type Approval Industry Working Group Meeting in Lagos yesterday.
Wakil, whose position appears to be a response to the agitation for higher technologies such as 4G and 5G, noted that Long Time Evolution (LTE), is a Technology just like other technologies and there are challenges in LTE device market.
Such challenges, according to him include Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Repair centres and clear warranty agreements, Assessment of Mobile Device impact on IoS and WoE, Multiband LTE devices are usually more expensive and the many multi frequency bands for LTE Devices in the world when compared to 2G and 3G devices.
The Type Approval Working Group meeting was setup in September 2018 to educate and deliberate with relevant stakeholders in the industry on the importance of Type Approval on all Telecom equipments and how it impacts Quality of Service and health of users.
This was provided for in the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 (NCA 2003) to ensure type approval of telecoms equipment, safety of users and acceptable Quality of Service.
Yesterday’s Working Group Meeting was well attended by representatives of Equipment Manufacturers, Vendors, Network Operators and Type Approval Consultants.