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The National Communication Authority (NCA) has advised manufacturers and importers of telecommunication gadgets in the country to bring their products for checks and certification before distributing to their consumers.

It said it had tested and identified some telecommunication gadgets such as television sets, mobile phones and laptops that emitted dangerous radiations, that might be harmful to the human body.

The NCA, therefore, urged government to intensify checks at the country's borders to help regulate the importation of uncertified gadgets in the country.

The NCA gave the advice in Tamale at a public consultation workshop for stakeholders and consumers of various telecommunications services on Draft Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations, 2019 in Tamale.

In line with the Electronic Communication Act (2008), the draft QoS regulation is intended to create conditions for the satisfaction of customers of various telecommunications services by making known the quality of service obligations, that the service providers are required to meet.

The workshop was also to help educate and explain the technical issues in the draft regulations to ensure that relevant queries from participants were properly addressed to get inputs from all stakeholders for consideration.

Mr Joe Anokye, the Director General of the NCA in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Henry Kanor, Deputy Director-General, Technical Operations of the NCA, said the regulations would help consumers to measure the quality of service provided by service providers from time to time.

He said the regulations would also improve the operation and performance of interconnected networks and to enable the NCA to implement a Quality of Service framework.

He said that would allow the measurement of quality of service delivered by the service provider, reported and published based on defined parameters and measurement methodologies as provided in the regulations.

Mr Anokye said as part of the consultation process, the NCA also reached out to various entities whose services would be measured by the regulations and other institutions whose work would be impacted based on the quality of service they received.

Mr Abukari Iddrisu, the Northern Zonal Manager of the NCA said the draft regulations were necessary as day in day out consumers of telecommunication services complained of dissatisfaction from service providers.

"We have received complaints from consumers on issues such as poor network coverage, receiving unwanted text messages from service providers, subscription of customers on unknown promotion among others" he said.

He said the stakeholder’s engagement was, therefore, to help highlight the key issues that would be included in the draft QoS regulations to help regulate the conduct of service providers in the country.

Mr Kwame Gyan, Deputy Director for the Consumer and Corporate Affairs at the NCA said the draft QoS regulations, if approved, would help the NCA update and upgrade on the various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) developed by the service providers.

He said it was also to ensure quality of service in line with changes in technology that bordered on the quality of service that consumers received from their service providers.