Ghana’s NCA fines MTN, Vodafone, Tigo again for poor quality of service

Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA) has once again imposed sanctions on three telecoms operators for failing to provide quality of service (QoS) to customers.

The three are MTN, Vodafone and Tigo and according to the NCA, it detected the service failure after it ran Quality of Service tests on the operators for March 2012.

In a statement on its website, the NCA said “MTN was penalized GH¢50, 000 for call setup delays in the Central region and a further GH¢100,000 for call congestion in the Brong Ahafo and Central regions.”

For Vodafone, the Authority sanctioned the company GH¢50, 000 also for call setup delays in the Western region.

“Tigo received a GH¢50,000 penalty for Signaling Congestion in the Brong-Ahafo region,” the NCA added.

The NCA has suspended Airtel’s Call Congestion sanction in the Brong-Ahafo region pending the “completion of their expansion plan in Sunyani”. The company has up to June 2012 to complete that project, the NCA stated.

Sanctions on Expresso on Call Setup delays were also suspended by the NCA till July 2012 for infractions in the Eastern region. The company was also directed to improve coverage in Tarkwa by September 2012.

The telecoms operators in May 2012 were fined a total of GH¢250,000 for quality of service breaches during the month of February.

In November 2011, all the telecoms companies excluding Glo were fined a total of GH¢1.2 million for similar breaches across country.

By Ekow Quandzie