Operators agree to reduce SMS tariff

• As NCC plans price cap
  
  
  Mobile phone operators on Tuesday agreed to commence steps to reduce the price short message service across their networks considering the potential of increased SMS use to reduce network congestion and in line with practice elsewhere.
  
  Operators expressed this position at a consultative forum held on Tuesday in Lagos by the Nigerian Communications Commission on reduction of SMS tariffs.
  
  The NCC had argued that current SMS tariff in Nigeria was too high against the backdrop of the fact that SMS utilises an almost insignificant network resource.
  
  According to the Executive Vice-Chairman, NCC, Mr. Ernest Ndukwe, operators were not doing their networks good by keeping prices of SMS high as increased use of SMS could help reduce the congestion on networks and improve services generally. He added that complaints about current tariff were increasing.
  
  He said, “As you well know, SMS serves as alternative platform of communications to voice to the teeming consumers in Nigeria. Recent findings, as well as other feedbacks from consumer programmes organised by the commission, particularly in recent times, have disclosed a concern about the SMS tariff charged by telecom operators across the networks, leading to a call for reduction in the SMS tariff rates by consumers.”
  NCC boss noted that under current tariff regime, various mobile and fixed wireless network operators charged different tariffs off-net and on-net, with the highest off-net tariff on mobile being N20 and the lowest N10. He added that on-net tariffs varied between N10 and N15, while off-net tariffs on fixed wireless networks ranged between N10 and N12.
  He noted that in some countries subscribers have SMS as a free service.
  “May I state that though the current SMS rates in Nigeria is not the highest in the West African sub-region, it is also neither the most attractive. It is interesting to note that other jurisdictions like Ghana, Gambia, Australia and Switzerland adopt free SMS policy while other countries only token amounts are paid for SMS
  
  He said based on the complaints the commission would introduce a price-cap for SMS services. According to Ndukwe, this is to encourage the use of SMS by the teeming subscribers, noting that there was potentially a market of 54million SMS users, especially youths.
  
  The Chief Commercial Officer, ZOOM Mobile, Mr. Fabian Uzor, said there was need to reduce SMS tariff but added that operators needed to address the issue of interconnect rates first among themselves.
  Officials of Zain, Globacom, MTN and Starcomms also agreed on the need to reduce tariff but Starcomms said there was need for operators to be allowed to increase their capacity in order to cope with increased use of SMS
  
  The President National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, a group that advances consumers issues, Chief Deolu Ogunbajo, suggested that operators should bring SMS to N1.50 per message.