TheCable

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has imposed a fine of N12 million on MTN Nigeria for breach of the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) business rules and regulations.

The regulatory body also slammed a sanction of N22 million against Globacom Ltd (Glo) over the same offence.

This was revealed in NCC’s 2015 Q4 compliance monitoring and enforcement report.

In its Q3 report, NCC had said it would monitor and sanction violations with MNP process time obligations in order “to address the increasing cases of port request rejections”.

The commission said series of compliance checks were carried out regarding timer violations by donor operators with respect to @validation and deactivation responses@, which had timelines of 2 hours and 1 hour respectively.

According to the Q3 report, there is a timer deactivation violation by MTN, regarding a corporate port request of over 109 lines belonging to Nigerian Breweries Plc.

“The company had initiated a corporate port out request from MTN to Glo via lead Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN): 07036735494 on August 11, 2015 at 1:20 pm but was partially completed as at 11:22am on August 14, 2015,” the report read.

“As a result, these subscribers were not able to receive calls from MTN subscribers.

“In the same vein, a timer validation violation by MTN regarding four individual Port requests from MSISDNs: 08139382308, 08143810152, 08135485305 and 08162108093.

“MTN breached the allowable two hours for validation of four port requests from the NPC, as stated in the MNP Business Rules.”

The 2015 Q3 report also showed that there was a timer validation violation by Glo regarding 11 individual and one corporate Port requests.

It said that Glo had breached the two hours allowable for validation of six port requests from the NPC as stated in the MNP Business Rules. Glo validated one of these port requests over nine hours after receipt from the MNP administrator.

The report also said that Glo breached the allowable one hour for the Donor to deactivate 147 Ported out lines belonging to Reckitt Ltd, consistent with provisions of the MNP Business Rules.

It, however, said that all the above timer violations were undergoing enforcement actions.

NCC confirmed that the two telecoms companies had paid the fine.