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Nigeria’s Telecom Sector In Turmoil Over Legality Of Market Dominance

Nigeria’s Telecom Sector In Turmoil Over Legality Of Market Dominance

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From Ventures Africa

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the body charged with oversight of the industry has been accused of failing to follow due process in enforcing its own guidelines on the industry, which is meant to create a level playing field for operators and protect the Nigerian subscriber.

Etisalat, a key player in the Nigerian telecom space, says that the NCC rather has colluded with MTN, a local competitor, to subvert  the rules on the determination of dominance. According to Etisalat, the NCC had approved a 30 percent differential in on-net and off-net tariffs for MTN without due process.

Etisalat Nigeria is seeking a judicial review by a Federal High court over the tariffs granted MTN by NCC which it contends is a breach of NCC’s regulation. tagged the “Determination of Dominance in Selected Communications Markets in Nigeria”. The regulation, which is meant to regulate further overbearing domination of the market by any single player, was issued by NCC on April 25, 2013, following a study it conducted in 2012.

The study unsurprisingly uncovered that MTN was the dominant operator in the retail mobile voice market segment of the industry and that it maintained a wide differential of up to 300 percent between its on-net and off-net retail voice tariff, which was not favorable to its competitors.

Following this discovery, the NCC reportedly directed that MTN should not operate with any differential between its on-net and off-net tariff because such would substantially reduce the competitive capacity of other telecommunication service providers in the country and give MTN the overbearing dominance.

Etisalat says it is instituting this action because, contrary to this earlier directive by NCC, the regulator has granted MTN further concession to operate yet another 30 percent differential between its on-net and off-net calls, a move that can only further grant the South African telecoms company an overbearing influence over the Nigerian market.

Read more at Ventures Africa