Nigerian CommunicationWeek

New Interconnect Rates to Crash Tariff

A new interconnect rate to be in place latest by January 2010 will result in substantial lowering of call charges for  the over 67 million telephone subscribers in the country, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.
A report of the review of the present interconnect regime by Detecon International and PriceWaterHouseCoopers submitted to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) will form the pillars of the new rate.
Interconnect rates are the rates which service providers pay to each other for terminating calls on their fixed or mobile networks.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the present interconnect regime has been in force since 2006 and therefore required a review in view of the exigencies and new developments in the industry.
While consumers say the present regime is unfriendly, CDMA operators insist the interconnect rate was very high and unbalanced in favour of the GSM operators compared to many other countries of the world.
Interconnection is a key to a competitive market.
In putting in place a new interconnect regime, the NCC will be invoking the powers granted to it by Section 97 (2) (c) of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003, to intervene in interconnection matters if it considers it in the public interest to do so.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that interconnection rates are part of a complex pattern of investment incentives. Indeed governments may prefer to keep them higher in order to encourage investment, while incumbent operators may prefer to keep them lower in order to protect long term revenues.

 

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