The Nigerian Communications Commission says it has granted partial approval for the disconnection of Globacom from MTN Nigeria Communications Plc.
In a statement by the Director, Public Affairs Department, Reuben Muoka, Globacom was notified of the application made by MTN and was given the opportunity to comment and state its case, but the commission examined the application and circumstances surrounding the indebtedness, noting that Globacom does not have sufficient or justifiable reason for non-payment of the interconnect charges.
The NCC revealed that at the expiration of 10 days from today, subscribers of Globacom will no longer be able to make calls to MTN but will be able to receive calls, with the partial disconnection allowing in-bound calls to the Globacom network.
This is not the first time Glo subscribers will be disconnected from making calls to MTN over the same issue, as in 2019, MTN, acting upon a directive from the NCC, briefly disconnected Glo subscribers over a N4bn debt.
In December 2018, the telecom regulator approved mobile network operators to disconnect other operators over rising interconnect debts and the failure of the affected operators to pay, a total disconnect fee in the industry at the time was about N165bn.
Interconnect charge is the price that telecom operators pay each other for calls terminating on their networks and according to reports MTN, Glo owes the firm about N6bn for interconnect fees.
