, Glo and Airtel have raised their end user tariff in line with the 50 per cent tariff adjustment granted to the mobile network operators (MNOs) by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
MTN raised the price of voice calls on its pulse bundle to N13.80 per minute or 23 kobo per second from N7.80 per minute or 13 kobo per second, representing a 76.92 per cent increase.
Recall the call tariff rate was N11 per minute before the price adjustment was approved by the NCC while short message service (SMS) was N4 per text message.
Chairman, Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said the MNOs cannot charge the same rate across the network, saying the MNOs will operate within the highest and lowest band allowed by the NCC.
According to random calls on the network yesterday, a 62 seconds call from Airtel to Airtel attracted N15.50 or an average of N15 per minute, a 36 percentage increment.
Another call from Glo to Airtel that lasted 56 seconds attracted N14.56 while another call that lasted one minute one second was charged at N15.86
A call from Glo to an MTN number that lasted one minute four seconds was charged at N16.64. On the average, what the operators have added to the previous N11 per minute for call is N4.60, representing 42 per cent adjustment in voice call tariffs.
Two industry sources within the telco expressed contrary opinions. While one admitted that indeed, the operators had started implementing a new tariff regime, the other said his organisation is yet to implement any tariff hike.
From the existing pricing template gathered from making calls at an average of N15 per minute, it is obvious that per second call on the network now attracts 25 kobo.
Efforts to get the voice call tariff of 9mobile was fruitless as successful calls made on the network did not show how much cash was spent but rather, the number of seconds the call lasted on the network.
A visit to the website of Airtel Nigeria and Globacom however did not show any adjustment yet on their data bundles. One of them even denied ever increasing call tariff, saying the increment noticed in call cost might be a result of interconnect charges for off net calls, that is calls that originated from other networks to the operator.
But all the telco, except 9mobile, and Glo have also increased their SMS rate from N4 to N6, fairly representing the 50 per cent adjustment. MTN had stated: “Y’ello! Keep enjoying calls at 23k/s to all networks and N6/SMS on Pulse.”
Last week, the telco implemented new price rates for different data plans, including a 1.8GB monthly plan for N1,500, replacing the previous 1.5GB plan priced at N1,000.
