Wireless service providers warn quack operators

The Wireless Applications Service Providers Association of Ghana (WASPAG) has cautioned individuals residing both locally and abroad to desist from using overseas gateways to sell bulk mobile and wireless content to people in the country at midnight without its knowledge.
 

“WASPAG members are becoming concerned about individuals who sit in Ghana or abroad and use overseas gateways to send bulk mobile and wireless content to people in Ghana at midnight, and charge them without end-users’ permission and therefore create a bad name for genuine industry players.

“These nefarious quacks are responsible for phone users receiving SMS or some mobile content from short codes they did not subscribe to and get charged for it,” said Director of Regulatory Affairs for WASPAG, Conrad Nyuur. 

“There have also been instances whereby phone users subscribe to a short code service and get charged regularly but never get the service, while others also subscribe to SMS banking service but never get the service even though they get charged for it. Some of this is down to pure fraud, where some fake Wireless Applications Service Providers (WASPs) pretend to be organisations they are not and send messages on behalf of that organisation.”

Mr. Nyuur, who is also General Manager of Mobile Content.com, said such activities negatively affect genuine players in the industry.

“Most of these fake players are not registered locally and yet they operate WASP services here, and some of them send unsavoury and deceptive messages and content on behalf of unidentifiable clients to unsuspecting Ghanaians. We are concerned that such activities will make the National Communication Authority (NCA) jump on all of us one of these days, and that will not be good for our industry.”

The WASP industry in the country is only about 10 years old and is still an emerging one, but the challenges it is facing from infiltrators pose a major threat to its survival, he observed. Top players in the industry include Mobile Content.com, SMSGH, Rancard Solutions, MTech Communications, Nosmay, TXT Ghana and MediaEdge-gsm.

They have all signed on to a very comprehensive code of ethics published on the WASPAG website -- www.waspag.com -- with a determination to protect end-users against bad practices and the abuse in the system.

“Our code of ethics, for instance, empowers our members to filter the identity of anyone using members’ networks to distribute mobile content; and when we find that consumers’ rights are being violated, we are required to either report or block that person’s access,” Mr. Nyuur said.

“The rationale for forming WASPAG, therefore, is to bring all genuine locally-registered players within the WASP ecosystem together for effective self-regulation through the code of ethics; and to assist the NCA apply the rules more effectively to weed out the bad nuts,” he added.

He said WASPAG will establish infrastructure for collecting feedback from the public to assist members deal with public complaints long before they even get to the telecom network or the regulator.

WASPAG is an independent, non-profit self-regulatory body recognised by The Ghana Telecoms Chamber, all mobile network providers in Ghana, the National Communication Authority (NCA) and the Government through the Ministry of Communications.