A press statement from the NCC's head of media and Public Relations Reuben Muoka said the new rates, which replace the 2006 rates, present many improvements over the old regime. The new rates apply the Asymmetric Interconnection method, where new operators enjoy higher termination rates than the older operators, Muoka said.

With the new interconnection rates, call termination for new entrants' networks are graduated from 10.12 Nigerian naira (US$0.07) from Dec. 31 to 8.20 naira in the year 2012 while call termination for older operators' networks is fixed at $0.05 over the same period.

In Nigeria as in many African countries, new mobile service competitors coming into the market have in the past been very critical of the existing policies of leaving the issue of interconnection to the players themselves, all of which charge different rates.

The term interconnection refers to the commercial arrangements under which service providers connect their equipment, networks and service to each other in order to allow their customers to access their services and networks of other service providers. Telecom companies in the region charge a "calling party pays" basis but customers are complaining they are paying too much for the calls.

Kenya, Zambia and Namibia are also set to introduce interconnection rates.