NCC wants consumers to protect Nigeria’s N2trn telecom infrastructure

THE NIGERIAN COMMUNICA TIONS Commission (NCC) has again appealed to telecom consumers to join hands with the commission in its efforts to ensure the protection of telecom infrastructure. The NCC wants citizens to take interest in the security of telecom infrastructure within and around their localities because safe and secured infrastructure is a correlate of good quality of service delivery.

The total investment in telecom infrastructure in the country is put at N1.95 trillion.

Umar Danbatta, the executive vice chairman, NCC, made the appeal at sensitisation exercise organised by the zonal office in Effunrun, Delta State recently while discussing the factors affecting quality of service in the telecom industry.

Represented by Venny Eze-Nwabufoh, zonal controller, Port Harcourt Zonal Office, the NCC boss noted that the programme was organised to give further expression to NCC’s resolve to carry out a robust sensitisation exercise of the general public on the need to see telecom infrastructure as critical national infrastructure to be protected by all.

Eze-Nwabufoh stated that one of the cardinal objectives of the commission is “to promote the provision of modern, universal, efficient, reliable, affordable and easily-accessible communications services throughout Nigeria,” addeding that these infrastructure are essential physical assets designed for telecommunications networks and they connect cities, towns, highways in Nigeria and also link Nigeria’s telecom with other countries to ensure seamless services.

However, the telecom industry has experienced a lot of setbacks as a result of a number of factors that are negatively disruptive to the infrastructure.

Eze-Nwabufoh stated that these factors include wilful damage to the infrastructure in order to extort money from service providers, communities and individuals barring technical staff of the service providers from installing their equipment or carry out maintenance at the sites, destruction of telecom infrastructure due to road construction projects in urban and semi-urban areas, as well as as vandalism or outright of components of infrastructure.

She explained that the sensitisation was designed by the commission to create awareness on the critical implication of vandalism of telecom infrastructure and the need for its protection by all in order to ensure good quality of telecom services and to consolidate the growth of the telecom industry.

The occasion was attended by officers and men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, representatives of the Nigeria Police Force, the State Security Service, students of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effunrun, youths and members of the Effunrun community.