I have noticed in recent times that virtually all the telecommunications companies have adopted a secrete method of fleecing their subscribers through a prohibitive data regime.

With the recent increase in Facebook subscriptions, the proliferation of WhatsApp platforms and other social media devices, the Telcos have suddenly turned data subscription into their goldmines.

This experience cuts across all the Telcom companies. No matter the volume of data that you subscribe to, it will be exhausted within days and you’re forced to renew and to keep renewing and renewing!

Now the substance of the Telecommunications Act is that telecom services should be efficient, accessible and affordable. In most cases, the data network is so poor that it takes ages to download simple links. This is totally unacceptable.

It will be recalled that when the GSM regime started in Nigeria, these same telcos were grandstanding and extorting subscribers, claiming that per second billing was not possible, until the famous boycott of 2003, which birthed the liberalization that is being capitalized upon today, by the telcos.

It is the responsibility of the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission, to come to the rescue of all telecom subscribers, by ensuring a transparent, efficient and affordable data regime. There should be a simple, transparent method of verifying data usage, not this present regime of unilateral and arbitrary assessment by the telcos, that puts all subscribers at their mercy.

The telcos having realised the current heat in the political space, are now desperately deploying an arbitrary data regime that takes them to the bank smiling.

I therefore call upon the NCC, to probe all the telcos, in relation to the method of data assessment and usage and thereby rescue us from all the telcos, including the broadband and gsm providers.

The use of telephone and data services cannot be said to be matters of private contract between subscribers and the telcos, anymore. Since telephone usage is attached to the freedom of speech and general communications, any subtle denial or restriction thereof, through a regime of profiteering, by the telcos, will be illegal and immoral.

Enough of this extortion please.

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