The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had few months ago given all the telecoms operators in the country up to June 30 to switch on the 2442 code to allow any subscriber who does not want to receive unwanted messages from the operators bar such messages. You can read the article here if you missed it.
Do-No-disturb is a feature that effectively blocks or silent an unwanted calls and messages. It also helps to avoid an unwanted unknown individual or telecommunication calls and SMS.
According to the Director of Public Affairs of NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, the action was taken in order to protect subscribers from the pains of unsolicited texts messages, which he described as a direct regulatory response to their yearnings.
The commission then invoked a regulatory provision, which had hitherto been overlooked by the operators.
Ojobo said, “Taking cognizance of the broad range of services, which include banking, insurance, financial products, real estate, education and health, the commission directed the operators to give the necessary instructions and clarifications that will enable subscribers to subscribe to a particular service or none at all.
“In fact, a full DND, which is the SMS ‘STOP’ to 2442, does not allow the subscriber to receive any unsolicited message from the operators at all.”
He, however, clarified that the decision of the commission would not affect personal messages, or person-to-person messages.
The services were classified as follows,
1 for Banking/Insurance /Financial Products,
2 for Real Estate
3 for Education,
4 for Health,
5 for Consumer goods/Automobiles,
6 for Communications/Broadcasting/Entertainment /IT,
7 for Tourism/Leisure,
8 for Sports, and
9 for Religion.
To selectively opt out of any of these services, subscribers can just text the accompanying number to 2442 or, to fully activate Do Not Disturb and bar every unsolicited text message, SMS “STOP” to 2442.
The bad side to the good thing
As there is head or tail to every coin, this one too has a flip side. On the part of the consumers, there is the celebrated reduction in disturbance, but for the providers of Value Added Services in Nigeria it means reduced revenue and really lean times ahead.
In Nigeria, the business model of Value Added Services (VAS) includes the provision of bulk SMS, premium SMS, ring back tunes, etc.
Bulk SMS are provided to — mostly corporate — clients who are interested in reaching out to a large number of mobile subscribers over a particular area, regardless of interest.
The advertisement or call to action is blasted via SMS across a wide area like a fish net and interested users then proceed to check out the product or service.
Premium SMS or reverse SMS billing on the other hand make the recipient pay for messages received after responding with a prompt.
The Do Not Disturb code will drastically reduce the reach of telcos and companies that reach out through these means, and even the consumer VAS companies will take the major hit.
As a spokesperson of one of the major VAS players in Nigeria put it,
Sending ads to targeted mobile numbers has always been effective on all fronts. If we send out 3,000 SMS for example, the reach is a guaranteed 3,000. But now with the widespread implementation of this code, and as there is no way to know which numbers are DNDed, these days, 3,000 SMS sent out now has a 2,000 target reach and people have not been made fully aware of the Do Not Disturb Code. I wonder what happens when everybody eventually knows.
I think I have a fairly good idea what will happen when the mobile subscribers are made aware of their DND magic wand. And I suspect the telcos know too, that will account for why they have been reluctant about spreading the word about this new development.
In an activities summary of the Nigeria Communications Commission, the regulatory body decried this lack of awareness on the part of the telcos.
“Whereas, the Commission’s compliance checks revealed that most Mobile Network Operators have set up the Do Not Disturb facility on their networks, however, the awareness of existence of this facility is very low because the MNOs are reluctant to sensitize their subscribers on the availability of this facility and how to opt into same. Further investigations suggest that operators were not actually keen on the DND as this may affect their revenue stream from value added services.”
Like I mentioned earlier, I have a very good idea what will happen when the mobile subscribers finally get a hold of this knowledge. Like a bad teenager turned upon his trust fund on his 21st birthday, they will put a final STOP to this unsolicited messages without any regard to the options for selectively opting out of individual services.
Nigerians have zero chills like that, but you do not expect them to, given the amount of trouble they have had to put up with as a result of these unwanted ads via texts.
Now, after reading this article I am sure that the next thing you might want to do too(that is if you haven’t done so before now) is to activate this code right away, but before you do so, take your time and read this important notice to the end.
If you activate the Do not disturb code on your phone
You will miss vital information like financial information, job interviews alerts, church programmes, parties and important events invitations and lots of information that gets passed on to consumers through bulk sms.
Now that you have read the pros and cons of activating the DND code, It’s now entirely up to you to decide whether to still go ahead and activate this code or not.
Here is my candid advice, if you want to activate this code on your mobile phone, limit it to the exact services you do not want to receive messages from. Do not enable this code to all the unsolicited sms alerts. i.e do not SMS “STOP to 2442 to fully activate Do Not Disturb and bar every unsolicited text message. Doing this would make you miss out on important messages and information in future. You can selectively opt out of any of the services you do not want by just texting any of the accompanying numbers below to 2442
1 for Banking/Insurance /Financial Products,
2 for Real Estate
3 for Education,
4 for Health,
5 for Consumer goods/Automobiles,
6 for Communications/Broadcasting/Entertainment /IT,
7 for Tourism/Leisure,
8 for Sports, and
9 for Religion.
If you have opted in for the DND facility and you would like to deactivate this, follow the guidelines below
Send “ALLOW” to 2442
Once the above is done the Number will get out of the DND Service & will be able to receive SMS