The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s telecom regulator, is done asking telcos to offer better network services and is reaching for the chequebook. About ₦12.4 billion ($8.85 million) in fines now hang over operators’ heads as the regulator plans to penalise persistent breaches of service standards.
What counts as bad behaviour? The NCC didn’t list offences line by line, but the usual suspects are poor services, including sluggish data, prolonged outages, and infrastructure issues that make service unreliable for a long time, are obvious. While the NCC has stipulated how this new fine will be applied, repeated failures, poor maintenance, or slow fixes could be where their patience runs out, and penalties begin.
A regulator has negotiated: To improve consumer protection in the sector, the NCC is focusing on Nigerians’ three biggest pain points: poor network quality, mysterious data depletion, and refunds arising from failed airtime and data transactions.
On refunds, the regulator, in partnership with Nigeria’s Central Bank, introduced a framework that mandates refunds within 30 seconds for failed airtime and data transactions, starting from March 1, 2026. The regulator is now addressing poor network quality. One big thing still loading? Clear rules around unexpected data deductions, and that regulation is very much expected next.
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