By Prince Osuagwu
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted two mobile network operators MTN and 9mobile approval to carry out a trial on national roaming services.
Roaming service enables a mobile subscriber to automatically make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or access other services when traveling outside the coverage of a particular geographic network area using the network coverage of other networks.
National roaming services mean that subscribers in Nigeria can make calls without problems in areas of the country that their network operators do not cover because those networks have reached an agreement with other operators that have services in those geographical areas.
The approval is for three months and will expire at the end of October, because it actually started on August 1, 2020.
The approval requires 9mobile and MTN to configure and test their networks for customer experience simulation.
The test covers some local governments, designated as the National Roaming Geographic Area, in Ondo State.
According to the Executive Vice President of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, the main objective of the test of the National Roaming Service is to promote the exchange of network resources between operators.
He said this will lead to optimization of operational spending (OPEX) and capital spending efficiency (CAPEX) capable of freeing up resources to expand mobile network coverage to underserved and underserved communities across the country.
The measure is also expected to lead to a better quality of service provision to subscribers.
He said: “The successful implementation of the test will allow 9Mobile subscribers to access MTN network service within the National Roaming test geographic areas without the need for an MTN Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card.”
