NCC orders telcos to inform subscribers of service disruption, compensate consumers after outage

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has mandated telecom licensees in Nigeria to inform consumers of major service outages on their networks through media channels.

The NCC directed telecommunication companies to state the cause(s) of the service interruption, and the area(s) affected by the service interruption/outage, as well as the time that would be taken to restore service.

Consumers must also be informed one week in advance where operators have planned service outages.

This was contained in the “Directive on Reportage of Major Network Outages by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs),” issued and made available to The Star on Sunday, May 25, 2025.

According to the directive, Mobile Network Operators, Internet Service Providers, and other operators that provide last mile services will also provide proportional compensation, including extension of validity, as may be applicable and in line with the provisions of the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations, where any major network outage continues for more than 24 hours.

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It identifies three types of major outages to include any network operational condition such as fibre cut due to construction/access issues/theft and vandalism and force majeurethat impacts five per cent or more of the affected operator’s subscriber base or five or more Local Government Areas; having an occasion of unplanned outage of, or complete isolation of network resources in 100 or more sites or five per cent of the total number of sites (whichever is less) or 1 cluster that lasts for 30 minutes or more; and any form of outage that can degrade network quality in the top 10 states based on traffic volume as specified by the Commission from time to time.

In furtherance of this, the NCC further directed that all major outages are to be reported by operators through the Commission’s Major Outage Reporting Portal, which is accessible to the public via the commission’s website.

Speaking on the development, the NCC Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Engr. Edoyemi Ogor, said: “The commission has trialled the reporting process and portal with operators for some months now before issuing the directive.

“By providing consumers and stakeholders in the telecommunications industry with timely and transparent information on network outages, we are entrenching a culture of accountability and transparency. This approach also ensures that culprits are held responsible for sabotage to telecommunications infrastructure.”

The Star