James Wire Lunghabo made a presentation to members of the I-Network mailing list present at the dialogue with ministry of ICT on the rights of ICT consumers.

Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Engr. Ernest Ndukwe has called for a joint management of the SAT3 optics fibre project to forestall frequent breakdown and improve its efficiency for international connectivity.

Ndukwe who made the call at the weekend when he chaired the Communications Session of the 4th Business Law Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, which dwelt on the provision of fibre optics transmission infrastructure in Nigeria, said he will advise the owners to invite the operators to advance joint management arrangement.

He stated this position with reference to a presentation by a NITEL representative, Mr. Jibrin on the SAT3, who related an unpalatable experience with regards to the maintenance of the system and the attendant delays that tend to frustrate the Nigerian subscribing operators. While Most of the operators present at the session called for a joint ownership as panacea to the problems but Ndukwe said that joint ownership may be difficult to achieve to resolve the issues and that a joint management will ensure that it is serviceable for the benefit of all.

SAT3 project is an undersea optics fibre cable connecting Cape Town in South Africa to the rest of West Africa coasts linking them to Europe through Portugal .
(Source: Daily Independent)

Uganda ICT Consumer Protection Association has received a donation from the monitor publications to provide a question and answer column for ICT Consumers. the column will run every Tuesday in the Monitor business power.

 

The  column aims at providing ICT consumers with informationand enhancing learning abouthow ICT consumers can protect themselves.

 

If you have any questions please send them in to report[AT]ictconsumer.or.ug. You can also use the contact us form on this website.

 

For questions to be published in the newspapers, they have to be 50 words long.

With liberalization of the ICT sector, consumer vulnerability is inevitable, but it is also unique to this particular industry because technology evolves very fast which means the lobby group has to keep on top of things.
“We welcome every initiative to address consumer protection and we shall collaborate with UICPA. This issue is enormous and calls for concerted effort by all stakeholders in the sector,” said Fred Otunnu the communications and consumers affairs manager at UCC during his presentation at the public dialogue.

Dissatisfied ICT consumers in Uganda can now seek redress from the Uganda ICT Consumer Protection Association, in case of bad service, substandard products and general unscrupulous practices by data and voice service providers.

The new lobby, which starts work later this month, will particularly address the issue of slow data speeds delivered by Internet service providers that do not correspond with the bandwidth paid for; overpricing of services and substandard mobile handsets sold at rock bottom prices through product promotions.