Nigeria’s telecom operators are facing potential penalties totalling about N12.4 billion ($8.85 million) as the industry regulator intensifies enforcement of service quality standards in what officials describe as one of the most aggressive crackdowns in recent years.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said the fines arise from multiple breaches of Quality of Service (QoS) obligations and are currently moving through regulatory processing, with pre-enforcement notices already issued to affected operators.

“The Commission is in the process of updating the Enforcement Processes Regulations to ensure that sanctions and penalties continue to achieve their intended deterrent effect,” the NCC told BusinessDay.

It added that the review would also introduce additional communications-related offences not currently covered under the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 and its subsidiary regulations.

The tougher stance follows a directive from the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, who instructed the NCC to introduce automatic penalties for poor network performance, tightening the link between service failures and regulatory consequences.

Under revised ‘Quality of Service regulations issued in July 2024’, performance obligations were expanded to cover a wider set of infrastructure players, including colocation providers, while penalty thresholds were significantly increased. After a transition period that ran through 2025, the NCC set September 2025 as the compliance deadline.

Early enforcement actions began in October, when Globacom, Airtel and IHS Towers were fined a combined N45 million ($32,100) for specific infractions.

However, the regulator says far more substantial liabilities have since emerged from broader compliance audits, culminating in cumulative potential penalties of about N12.4 billion.

The enforcement drive comes against the backdrop of a controversial tariff adjustment approved in January 2025, which allowed operators to raise prices after years of pressure from rising energy costs, currency depreciation and infrastructure expenses.

The NCC said the decision was designed to balance consumer protection with the financial sustainability of operators.

According to the Commission, the move has already spurred renewed investment. In 2025 alone, Nigeria’s telecom sector attracted more than $1 billion in fresh capital, with operators deploying over 2,850 new and upgraded network sites nationwide.

While acknowledging the investment gains, the regulator stressed that spending alone would not excuse poor service delivery. “Capital expenditure must translate into better Quality of Experience for consumers,” the NCC said, noting that enforcement would remain central to ensuring outcomes rather than promises.

Consumer protection efforts have increasingly focused on three dominant complaint areas: poor network quality, unexpected data depletion, and refunds for failed airtime and data transactions.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, the NCC conducted a comprehensive audit of 965 base transceiver station (BTS) sites in the Federal Capital Territory, representing about 65 percent of sites in the area.

The audit uncovered 5,557 infrastructure infractions, ranging from power and cooling failures to security lapses. The Commission said 81 percent of the issues had been remedied by December 31, 2025, following regulatory intervention.

Spectrum management has also become a critical enforcement tool. Since September 2025, the NCC has approved several spectrum trades and reassignments, reallocating roughly 50 MHz of previously underutilised spectrum to support immediate network expansion.

One such reassignment helped boost Globacom’s average 4G download speeds from about 9.5 Mbps to roughly 15 Mbps within months, according to the regulator.

Beyond network performance, the NCC said it has worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria and financial service providers to facilitate refunds exceeding N10 billion ($6.7 million) for failed airtime and data transactions.

Consumer sensitisation campaigns on smarter data usage, it added, have coincided with a decline in data depletion complaints.

These initiatives form part of a broader regulatory overhaul. The NCC is finalising Nigeria’s first structured Spectrum Roadmap (2025–2030), expected to be released in March 2026, to guide long-term spectrum planning, refarming and access models.

Together with revised enforcement regulations slated for gazetting in 2026, the roadmap is intended to make penalties more predictable, oversight continuous and compliance unavoidable.

For consumers long frustrated by patchy service, the looming fines signal a regulator increasingly willing to use its enforcement powers.

For operators, the shift marks a move away from negotiated compliance toward rule-based regulation, where data, transparency and financial penalties increasingly define the cost of falling short. (Business Day)

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