AIRTEL Nigeria Limited has commended the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, over stiff actions it has adopted in curbing the menace of call-masking and refiling in the industry.

Call masking is the act of concealing international calls coming into a country and presenting them as local in order to make profits from the difference in prices between local and international calls.

The commendation was made by Segun Ogunsanya, managing director of Airtel, during an interactive session with Raghunath Mandava, executive director, Africa, and other top officials of the firm with Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of NCC, at the just concluded 2018 GSMA World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Ogunsanya said: “I would like to sincerely commend the EVC and the commission for the tough action against the menace of call masking, which is no doubt inimical to telecom business in the country.”

In his response, Danbatta told the delegation that a new flexible regulation for spectrum trading and transfer of license rights and obligations, from one party to another, would soon come to effect as the framework was already conclusive.

Danbatta stated that the NCC has recently suspended the operating licenses of some telecommunications operators for engaging in call masking, saying call masking is the act of concealing international calls coming into a country and presenting them as local in order to make profits from the difference in prices between local and international calls.

He added that the commission had recently been inundated with complaints from service providers and consumers regarding the high incidence of call masking, call refiling and SIM boxing which led to the proactive decision to take punitive actions and nip the ugly trend in the bud. – Communications Week

– Mar. 8, 2018 @ 12:45 GMT |