IT News Nigeria:
Telecoms subscribers have experienced marked decrease in call masking in Nigeria, thanks to strong regulation under the leadership of Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC).
Following the enforcement by the Commission for telcos to deploy technology solution across their networks, cases of call-masking or call refiling has reduced drastically. Call masking is when inbound international calls terminate in Nigeria as local number. The Commission quickly noticed that this raises security concerns, competition issue and portends negative economic implications. The NCC has, since, swung into action; as series of regulatory measures have been taken towards curbing the menace of call masking. They include strict compliance monitoring and enforcement by the Commission; imposition of appropriate sanctions by the Commission on licensees involved in call refiling and masking activities; and suspension of numbering plans of some perpetrators and withdrawal of all their inactive numbering plans.
According to the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta, other measures taken in this regard include the continuous sensitisation of consumers and other industry stakeholders on the dangers of call masking, which is still ongoing; the development and institution of new reporting requirements on interconnecting licensees that makes it easy and seamless to quickly identify perpetrators of call masking. SO far, the technology solutions deployed by the telecoms companies is now helping to monitor, report, apprehend and block SIMs being used for SIM boxing activities and prevent SIM lines from being used for call masking activities. Through the deployment of the technology solutions and continuous monitoring by the Commission for compliance throughout 2019, cases and consumer relating to call-masking has come to zero.
