Consumer rights advocates in Nigeria have warned of imminent danger if the overwhelming market dominance of the country’s mobile telephony market by MTN is not checked.

The result of the “Study of the Assessment of the Level of Competition in the Nigerian Telecommunications Industry” recently released by industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had rated MTN by far the dominant operator.

For voice data, MTN, which had about 47.4 million subscribers (about 43.57 per cent market share), as at December last year, was declared the dominant operator. The network, which commenced operation at the launch of the GSM liberalisation in 2001, was also announced as joint dominant operator in the upstream segment. The other network so declared is Glo, which launched its services in 2003 and had about 24.1 million subscribers (about 22.15 per cent) as at December 2012.

NCC while unveiling the result of the survey had expressed concern that the mobile voice segment is not “effectively competitive.” It also expressed worry about MTN’s “wide differential (of about 300 per cent) between on-net and off net calls.” NCC noted that “this is indicative of the likely establishment of a calling hub for MTN subscribers.”

Consumer rights advocates who spoke with News Express on the condition of anonymity frowned at MTN’s failure to collapse on-net and off-net retail tariffs as demanded by NCC, saying that if the call rates disparity is not quickly checked by the regulatory agency, the smaller operators might be discouraged from investing in the networks.

One of them said: “Although the regulatory agency stated that the dominant operator in the mobile voice market should, among other requirements, collapse on-net and off-net retail tariffs immediately, the contrary is the case. At the moment, MTN is yet to comply with the NCC directive. Its booster weekly prepaid charge, for instance, offers MTN-to-MTN calls at 10 kobo per second, while subscribers are charged 150 per cent more – 25 kobo per second – for calls to other networks. At 30 kobo per second for calls from the second minute till the rest of the day, MTN Super Saver off-net call rates are exploitative. There is a huge difference of 200 per cent as it charged 10 kobo per second for on-net calls.”

According to the source, “The large disparity between on-net and off-net calls also appeared to be a strategy to discourage MTN subscribers from making calls to other operators.” He warned of a likely destabilisation of the industry if MTN is not compelled to obey the NCC’s directive.

Commenting on the issue, a telecom industry analyst, Akin Omotunde, said that “there is cause for concern in this game of might is right as the subscribers would be the ultimate loser.”

Omotunde noted that “Nigerians haven’t forgotten how they had to queue all day to make calls at NITEL offices and how they were reminded by their own Communications Minister that telephone service was not for the poor.” He warned that “Nigeria must not be allowed to descend to that better-forgotten past.”

The worried analyst appealed to NCC to take steps to enforce its directive, saying: “Given that the primary objective of NCC’s Study of the Assessment of the Level of Competition in the Nigerian telecommunications industry is to ‘ensure fair competition in all sectors of the Nigerian communications industry’, the regulatory agency is expected to work its talk in the interest of the subscribers and the telecommunications industry.”

•Photo shows NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah.