Lagos: Regulators in Nigeria have fined four mobile phone carriers a total of $7.3 million (Dh26.81 million) over poor service in a nation that depends on cellular phones for communications, a spokesman said yesterday.
The Nigeria Communications Commission's penalties hit Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India, Abu Dhabi-based etisalat, local firm Globacom Ltd. and South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd., some of the dominant carriers in Africa's most populous nation.
Etisalat and MTN must pay $2.25 million (Dh8.26 million) apiece, while Airtel faces a penalty of $1.68 million (Dh6.17 million) and Globacom faces a $1.125 million (Dh4.13 million) fine, said Reuben Muoka, a commission spokesman.
The fines come for poor service, dropped calls and bad line quality in March and April, Muoka said.
The commission issued a statement on Saturday saying that they decided to allow January and February to be a grace period for the companies to improve their services.
In October, the communications commission warned carriers it would begin fining them for poor service.
"The current penalties signal a new regime of quality of service management in the Nigerian telecommunications industry," the commission said.
The companies have until May 21 to pay the regulators or they will face further penalties.
MTN, long the dominant provider in Nigeria, has 41.1 million subscribers in the nation after 10 years of doing business there. Spokesmen for Airtel and MTN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Spokesmen for etisalat and Globacom could not be reached as telephone numbers for them could not be immediately found on Sunday.
Nigeria, long troubled by pothole-littered roads and little electricity, has relied on mobile phones since the government granted the public access to them about a decade ago.
Landlines are almost nonexistent, as the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to sell it to a private company have failed. However, carrier service is often so poor that those who can afford it carry multiple phones with different providers to be able to make calls.
The ultimatum by the commission comes as Nigeria, home to 160 million people, continues its explosive growth, making it a lucrative market for mobile phone service providers.
The arrival of Airtel sparked a price war in the market, with local phone calls now down to pennies a minute.
