Stories by David Agba
With ageincies
The Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Mr. Umar Danbatta, at the weekend said the commission had concluded partnership deal with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), through the African Telecommunication Union (ATU), aimed at improving the poor quality of service presently being experienced by subscribers in the sector.
He acknowledged that the technical factor involved at ensuring better quality of service made it more pressing for NCC to engage ITU in order to achieve an acceptable level of quality consistent with international benchmark, adding, I think that they have a lot of expertise that we can leverage on so that we attain the quality of service that is desirable.
The NCC boss spoke at the sideline at the instance of the Secretary General of ATU, Mr. Abdulkarim Soumaila’s courtesy call in his office in Abuja. He also admitted that the commission was entering into collaboration with ITU on standardisation.
Danbatta said: “NCC has also indicated other areas of cooperation towards the upcoming of ITU standardisation programmes that is around the corner, through the Secretary of the ATU. I think that we are going to continue with this level of cooperation and we intend to carry it to a higher level towards making ICT penetration more affordable and accessible.
“NCC will also work closely with the ATU in order to achieve its objectives for which the union was established and to ensure that there is proliferation of communication services across the lands to the African continent.”
While explaining the outcome of the mediation of the Frequency Management Council (FMC), on the 700MHz spectrum band between NCC and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the latter auctioned last year, he said: “NCC is not going to join issue with the NBC, there is this inter-agency mechanism at the level of management council and the council has intervened.