Kofi Kapito
A CIVIL Society Organisation, the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), has called on the National Communications Authority (NCA) to do more in sanitising the telecommunications sector for the purpose of reducing cost and improving quality of services.
It noted that issues of poor network, high data cost and unsolicited promotions and adverts through text messages, have been the major challenges associated with telecommunications services in Ghana.
In that regard, it has urged the Ministry of Communication through the NCA to intensify its quality of service (QOS) testing from quarterly to monthly basis with emphasis on parameters such as speech quality, stand alone dedicated control channel (SDCCH), call congestion rate, call drop rate and call set up time.
“The CPA is aware of some telcos and some providers in the industry not being able to use or max-up the spectrum assigned to them whiles other telcos has maxed-up their spectrum and needs more spectrum for them to provide quality service to consumers,” said Kofi Kapito, Chief Executive Officer of CPA at a press briefing Wednesday in Accra.
He therefore called for a review of the licensing regime in order to ensure equity and efficient maximisation of spectrum for better service provision.
He also indicted some government agencies for breaching data privacy by providing information of civil servants to third party business organisations who ‘bombard’ government workers with text messages on pay-day loans and household gadgets and appliances.
“It is illegal for any entity to give out information about any individual without their consent. We are also asking the NCA and other regulatory agencies to take action against betting companies who provide unsolicited messages,” he added.
The CPA, he said, would not hesitate to explore other avenues such as boycotting to get the regulatory agencies and telcos to improve the quality of services rendered to Ghanaians.
By Issah Mohamme