The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has increased the International Termination Rate (ITR) from $0.045 to $0.10 (10 cents) per minute.
ITR is the rate paid to local operators to terminate calls in Nigeria.
The new ITR is coming barely 8 months after the NCC announced $0.045 as the amount to be charged with effect from January 1, 2022. With this, NCC said the transit carriers known as International Data Access (IDA) operators are to terminate international calls at a discount of 21 per cent of the $0.10.
In an amended ITR document released on new rate, the Commission said, it would be paid in dollars to prevent a situation where the operator will be losing should the devaluation of the Naira continue.
In 2021, NCC put the total incoming international calls to the mobile networks at 1.1 trillion (1,153,834,485,182.74) minutes. The ITR was, however, paid in Naira, thus delivering less revenue for the Nigerian telecom operators.
The telecoms regulator said in order to ease the remittance of the dollar revenue for the operators, its meeting with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on June 23rd, 2022, led to the issuance of a new circular by the apex bank to all commercial banks to allow the telecom operators open dedicated accounts in respect of international calls.
While noting that a fixed rate would ensure transparency in pricing by all, and support the Commission’s effort to monitor compliance by all operators, the Commission added that: “To give effect to this, representatives of MNOs and IDAs had initially proposed a fixed ITR at $0.08 and $0.15 respectively, for Commission’s consideration. However, after a thorough evaluation, the Commission resolved to peg the rate at $0.10.”
