The proud buyers of the moribund NITEL- ntel, over the weekend said it has concluded plans to debut National Roaming services by second quarter of the year in the telecommunication sector of the country.
The operator said it has secured approval from the industry regulator, ther Nigeria Communications Commission(NCC) for the roll out of the first service in the sector
It said scarcity and poor network services would be tamed as subscribers would be opened to more flexible model that would enhance reliable network coverage with the kick off of the national roaming services in April.
According to Chief Executive Office of ntel, Mr. Ernest Akinsola, the national roaming services would be rolled out in partnership with MTN and 9Mobile and that the commission has already carried out a successful trial ahead of the kick off.
Speaking in Lagos at the Nigeria Technology Reporters Association/ Chief Executive Officers Forum, Akinola said subscribers and operators would have reasons for improved experience with the birth of national roaming service stating that it would avert network scarcity and poor service experience in the sector.
He said, “I can proudly tell you that the Nigeria Communication Commission has successfully carried out a field test on our roaming plan in conjunction with MTN and 9Mobile and they have approved that we are good to go.
“The roaming service will commence in April this year, ntel is planning to roll out national 2G and 3G roaming service with two foremost network operators, 9mobile and MTN Nigeria. This service is expected to roll out in the second quarter of 2018, April to be specific,” the ntel CEO stated.He explained further that “ntel has reached a commercial decision stage with 9mobile by finalising the pricing after we completed the trial of the roaming plan. With MTN, the network provider had agreed to go on national roaming trial with ntel soon.
“We actually met with all the tier 1 operators on a round table to ensure integrity before we finally settled with the networks on this plan. What subscribers should know is that the ultimate goal is about improve service quality, customer satisfaction and a win win for the collocation sharing operators and not competition among operators.“So far we have about 72% data and voice coverage in Lagos, close to 100% in the cities of Abuja and PortHarcourt. These we plan to boost through this roaming plan and on a wider scale with new management team on board and more funding secured we would embark on more subscribers centred projects to serve the Nigerian retail populace and enterprise market better.”
National Roaming is one of the policies introduced by the Nigeria Communications Commission to foster growth in the sector and it has thus constituted a National Working Committee for the policy implementation.
Outside the shores of Nigeria there, however, there has been calls to eliminate charges among operators on roaming services. Some countries in Africa that keyed into free roaming agreements include; Mali, Togo, Benin, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, and Guinea.
As gathered, the elimination of call roaming charges was to create a common market in telecommunications in West Africa by allowing calls to be patched through a single network and received at local rates without roaming charges.
According to the ntel CEO, to further drive integrity he network would begin contemporary sales of recharge cards and even roll it out in lower denominations among other penetration plans.
He said, “to also get in touch with cities cum hinterland coverage we would begin sales of recharge cards, even in lower denomination and we would get dealers outlets. The E-pin model would still be sustained, however we know that as we replicate our virtual operations to the contemporary system model more business would be expanded and new ones opened along the value chains for Nigerians to avail,” he said.
