Airtel Scales NCC’S Quality of Service Hurdle Emerges Network with Lowest Drop Call Rates, Least Congestion … Assures Nigerians of Superior Network Experience

Barely two weeks after launching a robust network campaign in demonstration of its extensive network coverage in Nigeria, industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has scored Airtel high in key Quality of Service parameters, saying the leading telecoms operator has met all targets in Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Measurements carried out in December, 2012. In the Commission’s report entitled Quality of Service Indicators for Mobile Operators in December 2012 and published in key National Dailies on the 28th of March, 2013, Airtel was given a clean bill of health as it met all the KPI targets as signed in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between telecoms operators and the NCC for Drop Call Rate (DCR), Call Set-up Success Rate (CSSR), Traffic Channel Congestion (TCHcong) and Stand Alone Dedicated Control Channel Congestion (SDCCHcong). In the four network measurement criteria, Airtel proved to be the best performing operator as it outperformed other operators in key indices, recording the lowest drop call rate and also recording the least congestion on the Traffic Channel Congestion parameter.

Commenting on the computation methodology of the report, the NCC said Key Performance Indicators were measured using a weighted average. “KPI statistics were collected in December 2012 from Airtel, Etisalat, Glo and MTN. To ensure that areas with higher population densities and thus higher traffic generating have a bigger effect on the computed Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of operators, the consolidated KPI figures at the national level per operator are weighted averages.

It would be recalled that Airtel, earlier in March, had commenced a National Campaign to educate Nigerians on its network coverage and quality during which the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Segun Ogunsanya, said the new advertising campaign on its network was necessary to draw attention to the enormous capacity of its network and its coverage of the country which has given the company the confidence in its chances of success in the likely competition that would be occasioned by the imminent take off of the impending Mobile Number Portability.

Ogunsanya, who spoke about the huge investments Airtel has made in its network, upgrading it to the largest and widest 3.75g coverage in the country with a total spread across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal capital Territory, Abuja also stated that Airtel was first to call for the implementation of MNP way back in 2010, adding that “the call was made based on the fact that we were making significant investments in our network and customer service, which are critical success factors in MNP.”

Commenting on the NCC ranking, Ogunsanya expressed delight at the comparatively high performance of the Airtel network, and pledged the commitment of the company to continue to ramp up the quality of its network as well as customer service, which he said were crucial ingredients for the successful launch of MNP.