Telcos to pay compensation for bad services

Customers of telecommunications companies who suffer bad services can now file an application for compensation.

They are to provide evidence to the National Communications Authority (NCA) indicating that their service providers acted contrary to the licensing conditions.

“The licensing condition says that for every 100 calls that a customer gets, three of them can drop; so if you are in a conversation and your call drops more than three times and you can prove that it exceeded the three in 100 conversations, you deserve a compensation,” Principal Manager of the Quality of Service division of the NCA, Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor said.

If customers want to swap their mobile number to another network, the stipulated time for swapping is 24 hours. Thus, if a customer can prove that a mobile number bought from a particular service operator is not working after 24 hours of purchase, that customer is entitled to compensation of GHc100 according to the law, he noted.

He, however, noted that no subscriber of any network had officially lodged a complaint with the NCA to claim compensation.

Mr. Baah-Acheamfuor disclosed this during a media sensitization workshop organized by the Authority in Accra.

The workshop themed: “Bridging the gap between the regulator and the media,” brought together media practitioners to interact with members of the NCA in order to increase their awareness on the NCA’s operations.

Explaining further, Mr. Baah-Acheamfuor said the NCA uses sanctions to encourage network operators to improve their services.

“The primary objective is to get a good service and ensure that the implied need of the customer meets what the license condition states,” he said.

Mr. Baah-Acheamfuor said before sanctions are meted out in the form of fines or directives, the authority would have already notified the network provider to address the problem within six months.

“The NCA regulates the telecommunications service on behalf of the people, and the fines are used to finance the equipment, which is being used for measuring the quality of service all over the country on a monthly basis, which costs about $3 million,” he said.