Telecommunications stakeholders have expressed support for federal government phone interception policy, an initiative to empower relevant security agencies in the country to intercept communications prejudicial to national security for public interest.
Rising from the just concluded Telecom Executives and Regulator’s forum organized by Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) in Lagos, the stakeholders noted that lawful interception of individuals’ phones is desirable provided there is a law to ensure that government does not employ executive fiat to trample on the rights of individuals.
According to a communique issued at the end of their deliberations, the forum stated that whereas NCC is empowered to regulate lawful interception, the existing laws have hurdles that could impede the interception process, adding that unlawful interception requires some sanctions because it is criminal.
“There needs to be an act from the National Assembly to describe the extent to which security agents can go for lawful interception and what is unlawful and authorization of warrant for lawful interception should not be limited to judges because it might impede urgency,” the statement added.
The forum dispelled the fear that government subsidy to newly licensed infrastructure providers could negate liberalization and competition in the industry, thereby discouraging private investors as the regulator assures that government has no equity in the infrastructure service providers but is simply providing incentives to fast track the deployment of services in Nigeria.
On quality of service, stakeholders at the forum observed that besides the usual reasons often advanced by operators for poor quality of service, inadequate network capacity accounts for a high percentage of issues of quality of service.
“Quality of mobile devices used by subscribers can also tamper with quality of service so we need to fight against fake phones in Nigeria as N730billion is lost annually due to poor quality of service.”
It was however observed that Mobile Number Portability scheme seems not to be very effective in Nigeria because most subscribers already have two, three or more mobile phones.
“Multi-SIM phones also hinder the success of porting because it encourages subscribers to use more than one SIM card and this defeats the porting phenomenon. More so, porting has made the operators to be more customer-friendly and operators must agree amongst themselves not to port postpaid subscribers owing their source networks.”