Under the auspices of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, telecommunications subscribers have rejected a proposed 40% tariff hike by telecommunications operators, vowing to oppose the telcos’ move to introduce a new pricing regime for data, calls, and SMS.
The telecom consumer group stated that any organisation considering a tariff increase at the current state of the economy is being insensitive.
The association’s president, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, stated that the association is opposed to any government move to increase the cost of calls, SMS, and data.
He added, “Presently, about 71 million subscribers cannot make calls. They shouldn’t task subscribers. The telcos might have been able to absorb some of the increases they complained about if they have not been losing subscribers.
“If everything were good, the telcos would have been able to absorb some of these shocks. The SIM-NIN policy is largely to blame for the loss in revenue in the telecom industry. A lot of prior losses to the policy are to blame too. We cannot allow the telcos to increase the tariff prices. They shouldn’t be thinking of this now.”
According to them, telcos have been losing revenue since the verification exercise began. They stated this in response to a 40 per cent proposed hike in telecom service tariff prices in the nation.
The President of the association, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, said if telcos had not been losing revenue since the exercise began, they might have been able to absorb shocks by the recent hike in diesel prices.
He said, “For us, it is because they are now losing revenue. By the time you study the situation, they have been losing revenue since the SIM-NIN exercise begann.
“Now, they are losing more revenue because barred lines cannot make ongoing calls which is an economic loss for subscribers as well as the mobile network operators. So why are they trying to shift that on the consumers by increasing the cost of tariffs?
“For us, it is the Federal Government and the Minister of Communications that the telcos should focus on. For instance, they should be pushing for a three to six months extension so that barred subscribers can make calls for instance. This will at least increase their revenue stream again. The telcos should focus on the Federal Government.”
However, a senior lecturer of Economics at the Pan Atlantic University, Dr Olalekan Aworinde, said the hike in the cost of telecom was expected.
According to him, while the increase in the cost of food has been pronounced, there has been a general increase in the cost of producing services in the nation.
He added that consumers might have to start prioritising their consumption of telecom services.