In line with its commitment to always put Nigeria’s telecoms sector ahead of cutting-edge technologies that can revolutionize consumer experience, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted approval for two Mobile Network Operators to carry out trial on National Roaming Service for a period of three months that commenced in August 2020 and ended in October 31, 2020.
The two telecoms companies are Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) Nigeria and the Emerging Markets Telecommunication Service Limited (EMTS), trading as 9Mobile in Nigeria.
It will be recalled that NCC Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde has said that with the approval EMTS and MTN are expected to configure their networks to begin test and simulation for customer experience. The trial approval covered few local governments, designated as the National Roaming geographic area, in Ondo State.
Roaming Service enables a mobile subscriber to automatically make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or accesses other services when travelling outside a particular network geographical area by utilising the network coverage of other networks with roaming arrangements to access service.
“The primary objective of the National Roaming Service trial is to encourage network resource sharing among operators. This will lead to operational expenditure (OPEX) optimisation and capital expenditure (CAPEX) efficiencies leading to freeing up of resources to expand mobile network coverage to unserved and underserved communities across the country, which will lead to improved Quality of Service (QoS) delivery to subscribers, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta said.
The successful implementation of the trial enabled EMTS subscribers’ access MTN network service within the National Roaming trial geographical area without the need for an MTN Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card.
Also in 2020, the Commission granted approval for two Mobile Network Operators, MTN Nigeria and 9Mobile, to carry out trial on the workability of embedded Subscriber Identification Modules (e-SIM) Service in Nigeria.
The trial, approved to run for a period of one year, involved testing 5,000 e-SIMs by the two networks, subject to compliance with a number of regulatory conditions.
According to Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, the primary objective of the e-SIM trial was to assess the technical performance of the e-SIM on telecoms service providers’ network towards eventual rollout, if satisfactory. He said the e-SIMs is a technology that will eliminate the need for physical SIM card slots on mobile devices in the near future, adding that the trial is in line with the Commission’s forward-looking regulatory approach to ensure Nigeria’s telecoms ecosystem is in tandem with global best practices.
