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44.7 million telephone lines dormant —NCC

By BusinessNews Staff on March 23, 2014

A total of 44,665,145 connected telephone lines were dormant in the month of January, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission.

This represents 25.82 per cent of the total number of connected lines, according to statistics obtained from the NCC.

The statistics also showed the declining fortune of fixed telephony in the country as the number active fixed lines came down to just 365,433 lines.

While the total number connected of lines by the end of January stood at 172,625,725, the number of active lines stood at 127,960,580.

This means that 44,665,145 lines or 25.82 per cent of the total were dormant for the period under review.

Twelve months before (February 2013), the number of connected lines stood at 159,879,295, out of which only 116,601,639 were active. This means that 43,277,656 or 27.07 per cent of the connected lines were dormant.

Expectedly, the Global System for Mobile communication, which is the dominant technology in the Nigerian telecommunications industry, accounted for most of the dormant lines in the country.

For the month of January, the total number of connected GSM lines stood at 162,719,517, while the total number of active GSM lines stood at 125,173,177. This means that the number of dormant GSM lines stood at 37,546,340 or 23.07 per cent of the connected total.

In February 2013, the number of connected lines stood at 143,327,286, while the active lines were 113,399,984. This means that 29,927,302 or 20.88 per cent of the total connected lines were dormant.

The statistics showed that fixed telephony continued to diminish in importance as only 365,433 out of 2,238,894 connected lines were active for the month of January. This showed that 1,873,461 or 83.68 per cent of the lines were dormant.

A year earlier, in February 2013, the number of connected fixed lines stood at 2, 438,435, while the active lines stood at 405,625, with 2,032,810 or 83.37 per cent of the connected lines inactive.

A number of reasons account for the high rate of inactivity of the lines provided by the digital mobile networks operating in the country. These include the poor services, which have characterised the networks in recent times.

Many subscribers, who have been frustrated by the poor quality of services rendered by the operators, find it more convenient to abandon their lines rather than carry phones that do not work when they need service desperately.

Another reason for the high rate of dormant lines on the networks is the high rate of promotions targeted at attracting new subscribers. Occasionally, these promotions produce many lines, which the subscribers do not really need.

The introduction of Mobile Number Portability in May 2013 was expected to stem the tide of the high churn rate as subscribers can still retain their numbers when they move to another network they dim to be more efficient.

[Punch]

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