The Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) has said World Health Organisation (WHO) has given a clean bill of health to telecoms masts and towers that they do not constitute health hazards.
The Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, spoke at the weekend at the ‘NCC day’ at the trade fair in Port Harcourt.
Represented by the Head, Department of Projects, Bashir Idris, Danbatta warned against resisting expansion and improved service delivery by communities and individuals, who refused right of way access to telecoms companies for fear of the myth.
He said: “There are individuals who believe that telecoms masts and towers constitute health hazards to human beings. The commission maintains that WHO has affirmed that no result of any such hazard has been established against base stations.
“Therefore, any individual or community adducing such reasons to deny right of way to telecoms companies and prevent them from expanding services are contributing to the poor quality of service in the network.”
The vice chairman hinted that NCC would soon issue a directive to service providers to give 14- day window to subscribers to enable them roll over unused data.
He said the move will stop the present practice where subscribers lose their unused data if they fail to renew on the date of expiration of the subscription.
Danbatta said the issue of data expiration at the end of 30 days had been an issue of concern among consumers, noting that the commission had put service providers on special notice about the present monitoring of user experience and would call them to account in due course.
He said the commission had embarked on sensitisation programmes to inform consumers about their rights and responsibilities.
