Foreign telecommunications companies, telcos who wish to terminate calls to their counterparts in Nigeria, will now have to pay a minimum of $0.045 per minute to have the call go through.
This is the Nigerian Communications Commission, set new termination rate for international voice services, effective from January next year.
The commission said that the new International Termination Rate, ITR for voice services paid by overseas telecom carriers for terminating international calls on local networks in Nigeria would be at $0.045.
The commission ‘Determination of Mobile International Termination Rate’ issued in November contain the rate. The $0.045 rate is the floor price for ITR services and shall take effect from January 1, 2022.
Payment discounts, volume discounts and any other concession that have the effect of lowering the determined ITR rate.
And will attract sanctions in line with the Enforcement processes of the Nigerian Communications Regulations, 2019.
The ITR Floor is the minimum to charge. Operators will be free to negotiate a rate above the floor. This will be entirely left to commercial negotiation between the operators and international carriers/partners.
However, while the ITR only pertains to the cost of bringing traffic into Nigeria. Nigerian operators would continue to pay the regulated Mobile Termination Rate, MTR, the local termination rate among themselves.