NCC Releases Guidelines On National Roaming in Nigeria for 2021

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has released new regulatory guidelines aimed at encouraging national roaming.

The Commission has said that national roaming services would not exceed three years from the date of execution of the National Roaming Agreement (NRA).

NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Professor Umar Danbatta explained that these Guidelines shall apply only to holders of licences validly issued by the Commission, containing a condition that makes the holder eligible to enter into a national roaming service agreement. National Roaming services shall be provided within the geographical boundaries of Nigeria. The guidelines are under powers conferred upon the NCC by Section 70 of the Nigerian Communications Act of 2003.

It says the guidelines are to be read in conjunction with the Act, the Collocation Guidelines, Interconnection Regulations, Quality of Service Regulations, Competition Practices Regulations, other subsidiary legislations that may be issued by the Commission from time to time, and relevant Licence Conditions.

On the procedure for National Roaming, the NCC disclosed among other provisions in the Guidelines that “duly authorised Service Providers shall request and negotiate National Roaming Agreements with each other on bilateral and non-discriminatory terms.

Based, the NCC said the experience of a roamer on the visited network should, as much as possible, be network agnostic.

The telecoms regulator, while elaborating further, revealed that duly authorised service providers should request and negotiate National Roaming Agreements with each other on bilateral and non-discriminatory terms. It said a roaming seeker requesting national roaming services should forward a duly completed Roaming Request Form A contained under Schedule 1 of these Guidelines to the roaming provider.

Thereafter, a roaming provider shall notify the roaming seeker of its approval or rejection of the roaming request, and where the roaming seeker receives no response from the roaming provider within 15 days of its request, the roaming seeker shall immediately notify the Commission in writing, and the NCC shall take necessary steps to ensure the roaming provider responds to the roaming request.

The Commission informed that the charges, terms and conditions for national roaming services shall be through bilateral negotiations and in line with the provisions of the Guidelines. It said National Roaming Agreements shall take into consideration legal aspects of authentication, authorisation and billing of the visiting or roaming subscriber so as not to compromise minimal safety standards such as location update procedures, financial security or warranty procedures in line with GSMA reference documents on roaming services as applicable to national roaming.

In the termination of the agreement, NCC explained that a party may request in writing to the Commission for approval to terminate a National Roaming Agreement with the other party on any of the following grounds: bankruptcy, revocation of licence or failure to renew an expired licence, and consistent breach of commercial roaming obligations.

After considering the request for termination, the Commission reserves the right to request parties to provide additional information which would assist it in making a decision; request the defaulting party, where possible, to take remedial steps to avoid termination; or convey its decision within 15 days, either declining the application or granting approval for the applicant to suspend the service.

“Where the service has been suspended for three months and the party against whom notice was issued has not taken satisfactory steps to warrant the reversal of the suspension, the Commission shall approve the final termination of the National Roaming Agreement,” NCC stated.