The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) is the entity Nigerians place their faith in to regulate the telecommunications industry in Nigeria for both data and calls. The commission is responsible for creating an enabling environment for competition among operators in the industry. Beyond that, it protects the rights and interests of consumers.

So, many Nigerians are expressing their disappointment about the news that telecommunication companies are set to upwardly review the cost of data, further increasing the hardship felt by citizens.

It will be recalled that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had earlier proposed to the Federal Government to introduce tax charge on phone calls. However, the increase in data costs might be informed by the fact that Nigerians are increasingly using data services in the country.

On November 28, 2016, MTN Nigeria sent out messages to its subscribers on the expected change in costs “Dear customer, please be informed that from 1st of December, some MTN data tariffs will be increased to reflect the new rates set by the NCC for operators. Thank you.”

Unconfirmed sources have it that, the current data plan of 1.5 Gigabytes for N1,000 will now be increased to N3,000 at a rate of 500 Megabytes per N1,000.

The review in costs follows the introduction of a new price floor for the service as set by the NCC, but is it fair to the consumers?

Figures from the NCC website put the current numbers of data subscribers in Nigeria at over 93 million people which represents over 50 percent of the population; with an introduction of more data related services like Netflix, Whatsapp video calling and so on, the expected penetration of such products is likely to be reduced.

Also, Nigeria is currently in a rising curve in terms of app development with increasing interests in technology, sprouting the likes of “hubs” across the country, an increase in data cost is expected to reduce productivity as data is paramount in this sector.

In an effort to clamp down on the expected increase in cost, some concerned Nigerians have launched an online petition, as the increment is perceived as one that will make access to the internet challenging.