NCC grants MTN, 9mobile right to trial of national roaming services

 

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted two mobile network operators, MTN and 9mobile, approval to carry out trial on national roaming services.

Roaming service enables a mobile subscriber to automatically make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or access other services when travelling outside the coverage of a particular network geographical area by utilising the network coverage of other networks. National roaming services means that subscribers in Nigeria can seamlessly make calls in areas of the country their network operators do not cover because such networks have entered into agreement with other operators that have services in those geographical areas.

The approval is for three months and will expire end of October, because it actually commenced August 1. The approval requires 9mobile and MTN to configure and test their networks towards simulation for customer experience. The trial covers a few local governments, designated as the National Roaming geographic area, in Ondo State.

 According to the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Professor Umar Danbatta, the primary objective of the National Roaming Service trial is to encourage network resource sharing among operators. He said this will lead to operational expenditure (OPEX) optimisation and capital expenditure (CAPEX) efficiencies capable of freeing up resources to expand mobile network coverage to unserved and underserved communities across the country.

The measure is also expected to lead to improved quality of service delivery to subscribers. He said: “The successful implementation of the trial will enable 9Mobile subscribers to access MTN network service within the National Roaming trial geographical areas without the need for an MTN Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card.”