Last Friday would have been the first Free Data Day on the Globacom Nigeria but for the decision of the telecoms industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to halt the plans of the operator to give free data to all its subscribers.
The commission through Sunday Dare, its commissioner for stakeholder management, said the free data day promo is a clear departure from what was approved by the regulator.
According to Globacom’s announcement, eligible subscribers would enjoy 200 megabytes of data for free to enjoy what it called the “free data day”.
Here’s part of the letter the commission sent to Glo asking it to shut down the campaign.
“Please refer to the commission’s letter dated 14th March, 2017 conveying approval for your Glo overload promotion. It has however come to our notice that Globacom Nigeria Ltd has been implementing the above regulatory approval in breach especially given your recent media campaign on the ‘Glo free data offer’, a clear departure from terms and condition of the approval given for the Glo overload promotion.
“Consequent upon the above, you are hereby directed to suspend implementation of the Glo overload promotion from your network with immediate effect.”
Furthermore, NCC also summoned Gladys Talabi, Globacom Nigeria’s CEO, to its Abuja headquarters.
3 Comments
But why now NCC? 200MB free data is not much. Well the reason is best known to them. I enjoyed my own 200MB data before it was suspended.
Why do we always have policies that make life difficult for Nigerians in place? While some are thinking of making life easy for the citizenry, others are bent on making it unbearable and extremely difficult! This is quite inhuman and unacceptable. I agreed, there were agreements between the NCC and Globacom, as well as with other Telcos, but suspending this is not the best way to go about it.
I have always been suspecting the activities of NCC since the emergence of Atiku Abubakar’s own Telecom businee: “ntel”. They’ve been doing things to favour the new entrant. We always involve politics in all we do here in Nigeria. Little wonder why we aren’t growing.
This is so unfair. Does it mean one cannot do promotions for their products any longer?