Airtel Nigeria has commenced a second round of airtime compensation for subscribers affected by poor network service, extending the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) new consumer-redress regime to service failures recorded between February and April 2026.
Affected customers began receiving Short Message Service (SMS) notifications of the airtime credit on Wednesday night, 23 September 2026.
The compensation amounts vary significantly, ranging from less than ₦50 to as high as ₦1,500, depending on the subscriber’s billed usage and the severity of the service failure in their area.
The message sent to affected customers reads: “In line with NCC Directive, your account has been credited with ₦xxxx airtime for network failure(s) in Feb to Apr 2026. Thank you.“
A Landmark Shift from Fines to Direct Redress
The compensation exercise forms part of the NCC’s Framework for Compensation of Consumers, which took effect in April 2026.
The framework represents a strategic shift in the regulator’s approach — moving away from imposing fines on operators and towards direct financial redress for affected subscribers.
Under the framework, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are required to compensate subscribers who experience prolonged or repeated poor quality of service within specific Local Government Areas (LGAs) where operators fail to meet regulatory Quality of Service (QoS) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Only service failures that fall below defined thresholds set by the NCC’s Quality of Service Regulations qualify for compensation.
The NCC has stated that compensation is calculated based on three factors: the subscriber’s billed usage during the relevant period, the operator’s QoS performance in the affected LGA, and confirmation that the subscriber made at least one outgoing revenue-generating event — a billed call, SMS, or data session — during the period under review.
How the Compensation Works
Eligible subscribers receive their compensation automatically; no application is required.
The airtime credit carries no utilisation restrictions and can be used for voice calls, SMS, data subscriptions, and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) sessions. Crucially, the credit is not expected to expire, per regulatory directives.
The compensation framework applies to both individual and corporate customers, and covers service failures affecting voice, data, or SMS services.
The NCC publishes a list of eligible LGAs on its website, allowing subscribers to check whether their area qualifies for compensation.
This marks the second time Airtel has rolled out airtime compensation to its subscribers.
In May 2026, the operator compensated customers affected by poor network service between November 2025 and January 2026 — the first time such an intervention came to light.
During that first round, Airtel customers received SMS notifications stating: “Dear customer, you have been credited with compensation airtime for service quality issues (Nov 2025 – Jan 2026). Dial *310# to check.“
Other MNOs — including MTN Nigeria, Globacom, and T2mobile (9mobile) — are also expected to credit affected customers in this second round, though Airtel has led compliance thus far.
Context: A Year of Network Disruptions
The compensation exercise comes amid a difficult year for Nigeria’s telecommunications sector. Nigeria recorded 238 network outages in early 2026, a 101.7 per cent rise from December 2025.
Fibre cuts accounted for 67.6 per cent of these disruptions (161 cases), while power outages caused 18.5 per cent (44 cases).
The disruptions affected subscribers across Abia, Cross River, Enugu, Lagos, and other states, with repair times stretching to as long as six days in some instances.
Fibre cuts surged by 900 per cent to 40 in January 2026 alone, continuing into February with 18 more by mid-month.
Over 90 per cent of these incidents occurred in Abuja, with additional cases reported in Lagos, Enugu, Benue, Anambra, and Abia.
Operators affected included BCN, T2mobile, Airtel, and MTN.
Questions Remain Over Methodology
While the compensation scheme has been welcomed as a landmark victory for Nigerian subscribers, significant questions remain unanswered.
Neither the NCC nor the MNOs have disclosed the methodology used to arrive at individual compensation figures, creating doubts that customers might be receiving credits less than the value of the poor network experience they endured.
The measurement of network outages and dropped calls also remains unclear.
The NCC has only once attempted to investigate the airtime compensation process — in June 2026, the regulator moved to review whether eligible subscribers received the compensation they were owed.
That review followed MNO claims that they had compensated 75 million Nigerians between November 2025 and January 2026. Five months later, the NCC has yet to release the report of that investigation.
As one industry observer noted, the calculations suggest that both the NCC and telecom operators are still “playing hide-and-seek with Nigerians” over the true scale and adequacy of the redress.
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