Senate, Consumer Council commend Celtel

Ayeleso Oladele, Lagos - 16.03.2008

Celtel Nigeria drew loud commendations from the Senate and Nigeria's consumer rights watch dog, Nigerian Consumers Rights Protection Council for taking a bold step to meeting the yearnings and expectations of Nigerians by commissioning a new switch in the nation’s capital, Abuja.

The addition of the new $6 million (or about N702 million) switch to Celtel network will boost the company’s ability to process more calls and SMS and will compliment the operator’s several capacity enhancing and service quality improvement projects which is expected to cost about $1 billion or about N117 billion in 2008.

MSC is the primary service delivery node for GSM, responsible for handling voice calls and SMS as well as other services such as conference calls.

The ceremony attracted members of the Senate Committee on Communications, led by its Chairman, Senator Sylvester N. Anyanwu. The guests also included the Director-General of the Consumer Protection Council, CPC, Mrs. Ify Umenyi, Celtel Strategic Distribution Partners, and representative of the Nigerian Communication Commission, among others.

In his welcome address, the CEO, Bayo Ligali, said the new switch was a response to the yearnings of Nigerians for an urgent and decisive resolution of the quality of service challenges being experienced in the industry.

The CEO used the platform to outline the immediate and long-term measures, which the company is taking to address the issue of quality of service and ultimately delight our customers with world class service.

Senator Anyanwu, who was special guest of Honour at the event, commended Celtel for listening to the yearnings of Nigerians for better quality of service.

According to him, “I am here today with my committee members to celebrate with Celtel because it is now doing what we want it to do in the area of improvement of Quality of Service.

He charged Celtel not to concentrate its effort in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and other big cities but also in rural communities, where the quality of Service is still very much below standard.

He described the Senate and Celtel as Nigeria’s partners in progress and pledged the support of his committee to the company in its quest to raise the standards of its operations.

The Director-General of CPC, Mrs. Umenyi, was full of praises for Celtel for taking ‘this progressive step’ towards meeting the desires of Nigerian telecoms subscribers.