The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has directed telecommunications operators to proactively notify consumers about major service disruptions and offer appropriate compensation.

Under the new directive, operators must disclose the cause, affected areas, and estimated time of restoration through mass media. Consumers are also entitled to proportional redress—including validity extensions—in line with the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.

Acting Head of Public Affairs at the NCC, Nnenna Ukoha, said the directive aims to improve service quality and consumer trust. The move follows months of trialling the reporting process through the Commission’s outage portal.

“The Commission has worked closely with operators to refine the Major Outage Reporting Portal. This step reinforces transparency and accountability in the industry,” said Edoyemi Ogor, Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity.

Operators must also notify consumers one week in advance of any planned outages. The NCC said this aligns with the Executive Order issued by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which designates telecom infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure.

Operators, including mobile network providers and ISPs, are required to provide compensation where major outages last beyond 24 hours.

The NCC outlined three types of major disruptions:

1. Network incidents – such as fibre cuts, theft, vandalism, or natural disasters – affecting 5% of an operator’s subscribers or impacting five or more LGAs;

2. Unplanned shutdowns or isolation of network equipment at 100 sites or more;

3. Service degradation in the top 10 high-traffic states.

All major outages must be reported on the NCC’s publicly accessible portal, which also provides transparency on the nature and impact of each disruption.