The Senate has ordered the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to halt plans to increase data tariffs by mobile telecommunications operators which was scheduled to take effect from Thursday, December 1, 2016.
The legislators issued the directive during the plenary on Wednesday, November 30, 2016.
According to them, all parties must be duly consulted to reach a mutual conclusion before such decision could be made.
This is coming up hours after Senator Ben Murray-Bruce promised to raise the issue at the green chamber.
He said: “I will fight against this data in the Senate.
The NCC had in a letter to mobile operators, stated that the interim floor price for data services was 0.90k/MB for big operators, and that “this rate will subsist pending the finalisation of the study on the determination of cost based pricing for retail broadband and data services in Nigeria.
“In order to provide a level playing field for all operators in the industry, small operators and new entrants to acquire market share and operate profitably small operators and new entrants are hereby exempted for the price floor for data services.
“For the avoidance of doubt a small operator is one that has less than 7.5 percent market share and a new entrant is an operator that has operated less than three years in the market.
“All operators are to ensure that subscribers are not automatically migrated to pay-as-you-go platform.
“Also, note that effective date for the interim price floor is December 1, 2016.”
There has been lots of kicks and criticisms from Nigerians who insisted that these are not the best times for such decision.
