The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) extended another lifeline to Globacom, Nigeria's second largest network operator. As the mediator in the dispute with MTN, Globacom denies that it owes MTN $6.7 million in interconnection fees.
For calls that start on one network but end on another, service providers must pay one another interconnection fees. In the event that your buddy using ‘network A’ calls you and your on ‘network B’ connection, for example, your friend will pay the call costs to ‘network A’ , and they will pay ‘network B’ an interconnection fee to complete the call.
The Nigerian Communications Commission in the press release stated, "The Commission is pleased to announce that the parties have now reached an agreement to resolve all outstanding issues between them." "Within the next 21 days, MTN and Globacom are expected to resolve all outstanding issues by the Commission."
On January 8, the NCC granted MTN to partially disconnect Globacom from its cell phone service due to nonpayment of interconnection debts. A gradual disconnection would have blocked Globacom's 61.39 million subscribers from calling MTN consumers. However, MTN users would have been able to communicate with Globacom users.
Founded and controlled by Michael Adeniyi Adenuga, the second richest man in Nigeria, the dispute over connection costs goes back more than 15 years, with MTN having repeatedly threatened to disconnect Glo. Globacom was obliged to pay $2.5 million in outstanding interconnect fees—a total of $5.1million—after five days after MTN disconnected the firm from its network in 2019. Additionally, Airtel threatened to disconnect Glo throughout that period