The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that MTN and Globacom have reached an agreement to resolve the interconnect debt issue, over which the former was to disconnect the latter.
This came as the 10-day pre-disconnection notice issued by the Commission lapsed today. With the new development, MTN will no longer disconnect Globacom as earlier scheduled.
The Commission, however, noted that the disconnection is only ‘put on hold’ for 21 days starting from January 17th, 2024. Within this period, the debt issue is expected to have been completely resolved.
Recall that the telecom regulator had last week approved a partial disconnection of Globacom by MTN over its refusal to pay interconnect debt.
It was reported that the partial disconnection if implemented, would mean that Globacom’s subscribers will not be able to make calls to any MTN number.
However, Glo customers can receive inbound calls from MTN customers.
What the NCC is saying
The telecom regulator in a statement issued on Thursday and signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, said:
“The Commission is pleased to announce that the parties have now reached an agreement to resolve all outstanding issues between them. For this reason, and in the exercise of its regulatory powers in that regard, the Commission has put the phased disconnection on hold for a period of 21 (twenty-one) days from today, 17 January 2024.
“Whilst the Commission expects MTN and Glo to resolve all outstanding issues within the 21-day period, the Commission insists that interconnect debts must be settled by all operating companies as a necessary component towards compliance with regulatory obligations of all licensees. It is OBLIGATORY that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and other licensees in the telecom industry keep to the terms and conditions of their licenses, especially as contained in their interconnection agreements.”
What you should know
Interconnect rate is the price that telecommunications operators pay each other for calls terminating on their networks.
If a call originates from network A, for instance, and ends on network B, what A pays B for terminating the call is the interconnect rate.
However, operators have failed to settle this cost over the years and the debt continues to pile up.
As of 2020, the immediate past Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta, put the interconnect debt figure at over N70 billion, noting that this has been threatening the operators’ capacity to expand their infrastructure for better quality service.
Danbatta had described the interconnect debt as “a big challenge to infrastructure expansion and inimical to healthy competition” which are needed for facilitating the digital economy in Nigeria.
