The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof Umar Danbatta has condemned unwarranted cutting of fibre cables and unending community attack on telecommunications infrastructures.
He said these were some of the reasons for poor quality of services in the country.
Danbatta, who spoke on Channels TV programme ‘Sunrise Daily’, said though the drop call rates being experienced by consumers was not acceptable, findings by the Commission showed that fiber cut and sabotage were largely responsible for the poor quality of networks.
“Based on the measurement of quality of service we have conducted, the call drop rate is not acceptable; the call success rate is equally not encouraging.
“But our findings also show that there are technical and non technical factors responsible for the poor quality of networks.
“These factors include fiber cut, community issues and unsteady electricity supply,” Danbatta said on questions centered around quality of telecoms services.
Danbatta argued that electricity supply was closely tied to the quality of service as all the network operators depend on electricity supply on a daily basis.
“Even though they do depend also on generating power on their own, they still have challenges of diesel most of the times”, he noted.
He said in order to address some of the issues, the Commission had suggested to the network operators to look for alternative means of powering their base stations.
One of such alternative means he noted was solar energy.
Admitting that although the option entails additional investment, he said it will ultimately be a solution to lack of electricity supply.