Senate accuses telcos of using drop calls to defraud Nigerians

The senate has mandated its committees on communication, trade and investment to investigate the use of drop calls and other “unwholesome practices” by telecommunication operators to defraud subscribers in the country.

Drop call is the fraction of the telephone calls  which, due to technical reasons, were cut off before the speaking  parties had finished their conversation and before one of them had hung up.

This fraction is usually measured as a percentage of all calls.

At plenary on Tuesday, Andy Uba, senator representing Anambra south, said subscribers were not able to control the usage of their data, and when it gets exhausted, they are forced to surf the internet on an expensive airtime option.

He said the operators have been experiencing congestion, which has “denied subscribers from getting value for their money:.

The senator also said telecom subscribers have continued to provide poor voice quality that “sounds like speaking from the bottom of a fish tank.”

“Subscribers have not been able to control bundle usage nor the choice to restrict browsing to the resources which they may have allocated resulting in a sudden and unexplained expiry of data bundle with the network automatically switching to a pricier airtime option when surfing/browsing the internet,” Uba said.

“All SM operators in Nigeria have recently been experiencing terrible congestion on their networks, thus, denying subscribers the benefits of getting value for their resources and hampering the ability to make or receive calls.

“Despite the warning issued to the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) on the activities of telecom operators using the dropped call mechanism to defraud Nigerians by deducting money from phone users illegally, no serious sanction or penalty has been issued against any operator till date.”

The upper legislative chamber urged the NCC to invoke appropriate provisions of the law and other extant agreement to protect consumers and refund them where necessary.

The upper legislative chamber adopted the motion after it was put to a voice vote by Bukola Saraki, senate president.

Saraki urged the committees to investigate the matter with a view to finding a lasting solution to the problem.