NCA bans Vodafone over network troubles

The National Communications Authority (NCA)- Ghana’s telecom regulator- has banned Vodafone Ghana from acquiring new subscribers either through sales and activation of new SIMs or by porting following disruptions to the telecom company’s network last week, which left millions of Vodafone customers unable to make or receive calls or access data services.

Additionally, the NCA has restricted Vodafone from introducing new services, promotions, offers, and from all marketing communications except services rated to the Recharge or Top‐Up Vouchers for their existing consumers.

The NCA said its directive to Vodafone, which is the country’s biggest telecom network operator, follows concerns in recent times with the operator’s network, which have been experiencing challenges on their network which have in turn been affecting consumers’ service experience.

“This is a situation the authority does not find acceptable, considering the impact of communication services to Ghanaians.

“The authority is hopeful that Vodafone will utilise the period to find permanent solutions to the issues and thereby improve the quality of service experience to existing consumers,” the Authority said in a statement.

The Authority said it has directed Vodafone Ghana to immediately investigate thoroughly and rectify fully all issues on their core network involving their Recharge Platform and the Home Location Register.

“This directive will be in force until the 31st of July, 2014, following which date, the NCA will conduct tests to satisfy itself that the network’s Quality of Service to consumers has improved,” it added.

According to the NCA, Vodafone’s network operations centre observed a loss in the visibility of the network using the monitoring tools. Upon probing further to identify why the visibility had occurred, they realised that a network failure had occurred, which affected all subscribers on the Vodafone Fixed and Mobile Networks.

Vodafone is therefore required to submit their Consumer Compensation Plan to the Authority for approval. The NCA said: “This compensation is for Fixed Line and Mobile Service subscribers who suffered inconveniences by the outage.

“The authority is hopeful that Vodafone will utilise the period to find permanent solutions to the issues and thereby improve the quality of service experience to existing consumers.”

Vodafone controls 22.6% of the total 28.6 million subscriber market making it the second biggest operator in the country.

Earlier this year, the NCA barred the smallest operator, Expresso, from sales and marketing promotions until operational challenges in some of its network areas are resolved.