GSM Stakeholders To Chart New Roadmap @ 20 Years

GSM Stakeholders To Chart New Roadmap @ 20 Years

SHALOM OLALEYE

The industry-wide dialogue summit Tagged: ‘Roundtable Conversation on Telecom Consumers Series’ is aimed at addressing salient issues affecting over 200 million telecom corporate and individual consumers, as Nigeria marks 20 years of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) revolution.

The forum is scheduled to hold virtually on Thursday, November 18, 2021 by 10:00 a.m. in compliance with the COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures.

According to the organisers, the reason behind the event is to adopt a novel approach of improving services using consumerism as a veritable tool. Arguably, telecoms is one of the sectors in the country with the highest number of consumers, conservatively estimated at over 200 million.

Publicity Lead of the forum, Mh’Saheed Olaniran said,

“In the last two decades following the full liberalisation of the sector, more than $70 billion Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and Local Investment has been pumped into infrastructure expansion and other operations by telecoms licensees. This, in turn, has helped in delivering services to the consumers, whose spending on telecoms services have bolstered the growth of the sector.

“With the growing numbers of both individual and enterprise consumers of telecoms services, a key aspect of concern is always the consumer-operator relationship with emphasis on value of money spent on telecoms services and products, as all consumer satisfaction metrics have remained qualitatively and quantitatively on a low ebb.

“When assessed, the result of a poll once conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission showed that 88.5 per cent of subscribers answered in the negative when asked if they were satisfied with services received from their service providers. Only 9.16 per cent were satisfied while 2.33 per cent were indifferent,”

In the light of such disturbing discovery, Olaniran said “the forthcoming event is meant to address the issue of quality experience and network expansion, not just for the present but also for coming years when demand for heavy consumption of telecoms services must have exploded.”