By ABUBAKAR YUSUF.
Service Providers across major and minor networks have increased their call costs indiscriminately aftermath of the removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government.
A survey carried out in the last few weeks across MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat among many others confirmed the increments across board without the consent of National Communication Commission NCC.
Series of visits to the headquarters of NCC from the 9th July to July 14th, could not confirm the new ugly development as the Public Relations Officer of the organization could not be reached.
A lay man survey confirmed call costs to be beyond the former range ,as call cards of all the network providers for N100 cannot be used for five minutes across networks, and same network, as against the previous situations.
It is worst hit on the purchase of data, as N100 data goes for just few second before exhaustion.
Some online bloggers and professionals had complained bitterly stating that after the removal of subsidy, a data of N1000 that goes for five days not minding the activities online, was reduced to just two days .
The previous administration of President Muhammadu Buhari reviewed call rates at the twilight of the administration via NCC, only for the service providers to revert secretly.
The silence from the regulators, the NCC was an indicator of their complicity in the new call rates and data assessment, as service providers had indulged in shortchanging the numerous customers in connivance with the agency.
A call had however gone to the new administration to look into the activities of the service providers and it’s regulators to reduce unnecessary hardship and more burden on Nigerians.
The global desire and technological innovations and advancement had made the use of online platforms more attractive and competitive, particularly at the peak of global pandemic of COVID-19 and economic recession.
