Nigerian operators to help drive network benchmarks

Nigeria's telecommunications regulator and industry players have agreed to introduce key performance indicators (KPIs) to help alleviate network congestion, and that stakeholders in the communications arena including private companies should help drive the benchmarks.

The regulatory body -- the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) -- has up to now defined the KPIs, then passed the benchmarks to operators. KPIs, also referred to as key success indicators, are measurements that define progress toward achieving network performance goals.

The new approach to KPIs was announced earlier this week by Dave Imoko, head of public affairs at the NCC, in a new release. The announcement followed a public forum on quality of service (QOS) held last month in Abuja.

A QOS working group comprising representatives of the NCC, service providers, the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, consumer advocacy groups and other interested stakeholders was set up last year.

Top on the forum agenda this year was network congestion, the country's limited transmission infrastructure and capacity, inadequate public power supply, security challenges facing telecoms infrastructures as well as community relations. But forum participants agreed that KPIs for these issues must be driven by stakeholders and not the industry regulator alone.

In the wake of the forum, Imoko said that a process of public consultation and feedback would be used before final determination and publication of new KPIs.

"The operators also presented information on some of the challenges facing them as well as their expectations from the government and the regulator," he said.

Network congestion is a big issue. Last year the NCC issued directives to several operators to reimburse subscribers for service that was below average quality, citing failure to achieve required Traffic Channel Congestion levels as measured by KPIs.

At the April summit, the presentations highlighted statistical data on the number of base stations and switches installed, transmission capacity improvements in networks and projections for network service improvement.

The NCC is calling for operators to speed deployment of base stations and transmission capacity to address QOS challenges, Imoko said. The NCC also urged operators to publish their consumer codes of practice and service level agreements as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, government agencies should provide incentives to operators that are interested in deploying land line infrastructure to complement the dominant mobile phone services, the NCC said.

In addition, the forum charged NCC to collaborate with telecom operators and make services more accessible to the physically challenged.