The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced that 10 new Value-Added Service (VAS) providers were licensed in 2019.
The commission made known that the licensing of the new providers had become necessary in order to deepen the market, and further improve scalability. This is because the market value of VAS is now $200 million, and is projected to hit $500 million by 2024.
The newly licensed companies include I-Cell Multimedia Limited; Nina-Jojer Limited; 21st Century Technologies Limited; Nitroswitch Limited; HML Consulting Limited; and Iykejordan Limited. Others are Cognys Systems Limited, Perpetual Communications Limited, Mobile Intelligence Limited, and Aerandir Technologies Nigeria Limited, Guardian reported.
According to the NCC, the VAS aggregator license is important as it would improve innovation, local content, employment opportunities, and increase in income stream to both network operators and content developers.
NCC added that over 24 million validly registered subscriber records were cleaned-up (de-duplicated) via Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), in fulfilment of the mandate to establish a credible database of telephone subscribers.
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It also upgraded the database with additional features such as “Add SIM” and “Update SIM” functionalities as well as the National Identity Number (NIN) field for improved SIM registration process and ease of harmonisation of subscriber data with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) when the NIN regulation comes into force.
In addition, NCC is partnering with the NIMC to make the use of NIN mandatory in line with the Federal Government’s directive. The directive stipulates it for use for transactions such as SIM registration, reactivation/retrieval and so on.
What you should know: Nairametrics had reported when the NCC disclosed that a total number of 120 new Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were licensed between January and October this year. Although the number of licensed operators was at one time over 170, many operators quit because of the challenges surrounding the business.
