Warns Owners Of SIM Cards Used For Fraud

THE Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has said efforts were being made to ensure total Quality of Experience (QoE) that would discourage telecommunications subscribers from using multiple SIM cards.

The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, who disclosed this during a special engagement with the media in Lagos on Thursday,January 18, to discuss his vision and strategy after spending 100 days in office, stressed that the regulator would foster growth in the telecoms industry by focusing on collaboration, compliance, data and quality of experience.

He said it was very vital to collaborate with stakeholders, ranging from government agencies to the media, telecoms operators and consumers, adding the Commission would be focusing on three major stakeholders- telecoms consumers, industry itself and government.

Maida stated that NCC would be focusing on the needs of each of these stakeholders, saying, for instance, that it knew consumers look forward to total QoE; hence it would be driving QoE right from the point of how consumers find and select telecoms services.

He added: “We will be leveraging on data to be able to empower consumers to make the right choice, so that we can move away from the world where we have multiple SIM devices.

“Rather than multiple devices and SIM cards, we are looking at a situation where consumers will only have one SIM card and one device.

“We are also going to be working with our licensees on data tariff, speed and coverage and to see how tariff can be simpler and more transparent.”

Maida further said NCC would continue to enlighten consumers to understand the habits that drive greater data usage, explaining that as consumers buy phones with stronger data tolerance, which produce better quality pictures, they fail to realise that these habits consume data faster.

Meanwhile, NCC warned that owners of SIM cards used for fraudulent activities would be made to face prosecution, noting: “We are also going to see how we can improve the general security and integrity from the consumers’ perspective.

“The Commission plans to create a platform where consumers can verify whether lines they have not used for a long time are still active or not. We have noticed that vicious people are targeting lines that are dormant for a long time to carry out fraud.

“Also, we want to formulate a policy to ensure that any line used to carry out fraud, the owner of that line will be prosecuted. So, if you are not using a particular line, it is advisable you block it.”

Maida said NCC would focus more on being data-centric in a digital age, saying as a regulator of the telecoms industry, it was necessary to leverage data to make informed decisions.

“We will be driving the collection of a lot of data from our stakeholders to project the work that we are doing, so that we can have a high level of transparency and accountability,” he stated.