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.”
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