NCC Begins Compensation For Subscribers Affected By Poor Network Service

NCC rolls out airtime compensation for users impacted by poor service between November 2025 and January 2026.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said subscribers’ compensation for poor service quality delivered by telecoms operators will begin today (Friday) across all networks.

The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida who revealed this in Lagos on Thursday during a media chat with journalists, however said only those subscribers that were unable to utilise the services of their telecoms operators and could not make successful calls, and could not send text messages between November 2025 and January 2026, would be eligible for compensation.

According to him, NCC has concluded network assessment between November 2025 and January 2026, and has agreed with telecoms operators to begin compensation to affected subscribers that experienced poor service quality on their networks between November 2025 and January 2026.

Maida said NCC would continue with the network assessment periodically and ensure that subscribers are well compensated for poor service quality, adding that the compensation will be in the form of airtime top up for all affected subscribers.

“NCC has put mechanisms in place to make sure that all subscribers that qualify for compensation get the required compensation. For any subscriber to quality, such subscriber must have obviously suffered adversely from poor service quality offered by telecoms operators. NCC carried out network assessment in each local government area of the country, and we have seen that some subscribers were disenfranchised from making calls or sending text messages. Only those that attempted to make calls and could not make successful calls will be compensated.

Those that didn’t make any transaction, and didn’t make any call at all, and didn’t use their data at all, within that period of time, will not be compensated,” Maida said.

Maida however assured telecoms subscribers of improved service quality going forward. According to him, “Last year, operators were able to carry out updates for coverage and capacity on 300 sites. But this year, we have a commitment to about 12,000 sites updates, and out of those 12,000 sites, 2,800 of them have been upgraded for better service quality delivery, covering about 63 new sites. This was achieved from the additional spectrum of 4G sites and also the conversion of 2G, 3G sites to 4G and 5G sites. So you can see we’re already way ahead of what we have done in the last year. Again, operators’ commitments to investments generally have been maintained and surpassed, and all these will lead to improved quality of service across networks,” Maida said.

MTN in a statement issued on Thursday, assured its affected customers of adequate compensation.

“All customers within the affected areas where service shortfalls were recorded will receive compensation for the operating periods of November 2025 and January 2026 in accordance with the applicable framework, While we remain fully committed to this compensation process, our ultimate objective is to consistently deliver high quality services to our valued customers and work with partners to address challenges and eliminate service disruptions,” MTN said in its statement.