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In this study, the conceptualisation to decompose the Nigerian communications institution into its first and second levels is in line with the Saleth and Dinar, (1999:104; 2004:104) institutional decomposition analytical approach. In addition, this study, seeks to extend the Saleth and Dinar (1999, 2004)’s conceptual analytical model, by introducing the enforcement component into the first and second decomposition levels. In this way, this study aligns with North (1990;

2005), to emphasise that application of responsive enforcement mechanisms is inevitable for institution decomposition analysis in the telecommunications sector, in contrast to the water institution which Saleth and Dinar (1999, 2004) have broadly decomposed into the three major components of the institution, namely: policy, law, and administration (their level one).

Therefore, situating the above decomposition approach, adapted from Saleth and Dinar (1999) in the context of this study, the analytical decomposition of the mobile institution is performed in two levels. In the first level, the mobile institution is decomposed into four broad components of institution, namely: mobile policy, mobile law, mobile administration and mobile enforcement. In the second level of the institution decomposition approach, each of the four broad components of the mobile institution is further decomposed into its essential institutional aspects; key features, which are relevant to the representation of ordinary mobile telecommunications consumers in the Nigerian context. These two levels will be examined in turn below.

87 2.6.3.1 Decomposition of Mobile Institution: First Level - Policy, Law, Administration, and Enforcement

In the previous section, it was stated that the aim of separating the mobile institution into its main components is to facilitate the analysis of each component’s contribution towards the representation of ordinary mobile telecommunications consumers. In this section, the mobile telecommunications institution has been decomposed into its main four components: mobile Policy, mobile Law, and mobile Enforcement. The attributes of the components are examined below.

Mobile policy

Policy gives the overall direction and the key objectives of the development of the envisaged telecommunications industry. In the context of this study, the mobile policy consists of the National Telecommunications policy 2000, the ICT Policy 2012, and pro-consumer policies.

The mobile policy in reality initiates the process of enacting the mobile law while the mobile law facilitates implementation of the mobile policy. Thus, mobile law and guidelines mirror the mobile policy with respect to the ordinary mobile consumers’ representation.

Mobile law

There exists a strong linkage between the mobile law and the mobile policy at source and implementation levels. The mobile legal framework consists of legislative statements or definitions that relate to the ordinary mobile consumer such as, the provisions in the Act 2003, regulations, guidelines, procedures and rights, norms and practices that directly affect or are related to the promotion of consumer interests in the mobile telecoms sector in Nigeria.

Mobile administration

Mobile administration is treated as part of the rules of the game as opposed to being part of the industry players. Hence, in the context of this study, administration consists of all the mechanisms, procedures and processes, necessary for the ordinary consumers’ representation, which are established to facilitate the implementation of the mobile policy, mobile law, and

88 mobile enforcement. Examples include complaint-handling procedure of individual service providers, redress mechanisms, public inquiries, research, alternate dispute resolution, application of mobile consumer rights, data collection and processing for compliance monitoring purposes, minimum quality of service standards, accountability, project selection and comparative industry statistics etc. Administration also includes regulatory decision-making process and the internal rules of the services providers’ consumer code of practice.

Mobile enforcement

Similarly, as mentioned above, the mobile enforcement component of the institution is linked with the policy, law and administrative components of the institution at source and implementation levels and includes monitoring, information gathering and enforcement procedures/mechanisms. According to North (1990), proper functioning of institutions, with reference to transaction cost theory, depends on the costliness of enforcement. Thus, this study conceptually separates the enforcement component from the mobile communications institution, for analysis purposes. Firstly, to evaluate how the enforcement component of the Nigerian communications institution influenced the representation of ordinary consumer in the telecommunications sector. Secondly, to emphasise the importance of enforcement of existing formal rules in the mobile telecommunications sector in line with the notion of North (2005) which states that the stakeholders’ response to the rules depend on the efficiency of the enforcement of the rules.

2.6.3.2 Second Level Decomposition of Mobile Institution – Aspects

In the second level of the institution decomposition approach, each of the four main components of the mobile telecommunications institution is further decomposed into its essential institutional aspects, which are relevant to the representation of ordinary mobile telecommunications consumers. The constituent aspects, which are derived from literature and topical debates on consumer representation, form the basis for developing the analytical framework presented in Table 2 below.

89 TABLE 2.ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK:LINKAGES BETWEEN INSTITUTIONAL COMPONENTS

The above analytical framework was systematically derived from the four major components of the mobile telecommunications institution, namely, mobile policy, mobile law, mobile administration and mobile enforcement and their constituent aspects. It provides the basis for assessing the extent the ordinary consumer has been represented in the Nigerian telecommunications sector.

The key aspects of Mobile Policy dealing with representation of ordinary consumer include the objective of provisioning of good quality modern telephone service to ordinary consumers at affordable price. Others are affording consumers the opportunity, for instance through conducting consumer research, to submit opinion in support of their interest and to resolve consumer complaints.

Mobile Law in synergy with the mobile policy gives legal effect to the relevant institutional aspects to buttress consumer representation including the establishment of an independent and transparent regulator, legal definition of the consumer and consumer interest, structures and processes for consumer influential representation in regulatory process, complaints management, monitoring and enforcement procedures.

90 Mobile Administration, as was stated above, includes all the mechanisms, procedures and processes, necessary for the ordinary consumers’ representation, which are established to facilitate the implementation of the mobile policy, mobile law, and mobile enforcement such as regulatory interventions, individual consumer codes of practice, provision of information, research and public forums, pricing and accountability mechanism, consumer engagement and complaints management mechanisms. Similarly, Mobile enforcement institutional aspects are the mechanisms for monitoring compliance, performance assessment and enforcement of license conditions, consumer codes of practice and consumer rights and redress.

In line with the discussions of linkages within the mobile institution, the overall effectiveness of the mobile institution depends on the individual as well as the interactive effects of its four institutional components. Similarly, the overall effectiveness of each of the four components of institution depends on the effectiveness of its constituent aspects as well as the strength of their linkages with the other components and their constituent aspects. Thus, the overall performance of the mobile policy, with focus on the ordinary consumer representation is not only linked to both the individual and joint effects of the four institutional components and their underlying institutional aspects but also on the extent of integration among them. In addition, the performance of the mobile institution is also influenced by the exogenous effects, which emanate from the political, economic and general social-cultural and resource related environment in which it is embedded (Saleth and Dinar, 2004; North, 1990).

Figure 1, below, gives firstly a conceptual illustration of the components of the mobile institution, which the author seeks to represent with a frame model of four sides supported by the four components of the mobile institution on which the ordinary consumer representation rests.

91 FIGURE 1. FRAME OF MOBILE INSTITUTION

Source: Author

Secondly, the ‘Partnership’ in the frame depicts the need for the regulator to enable a conducive environment that facilitates the working together with the ordinary consumers and the service providers to ensure that the collective decisions taken reflect the public interests, as opposed to the service providers’ interests hence do not tilt the interest box to the consumer’s detriment. It involves the use of institutional incentives such as independent consumer representation and enforcement mechanisms to correct the imbalances prevalent between the services providers and the consumers (Take, 2012).

The frameworks – theoretical and analytical – established in this chapter will serve as guide for conducting the policy document analysis in the empirical part of this study. The analysis, using these essential aspects underlying the four components of the mobile institution as benchmarks, also focuses on institutional change – the possibilities of improvements or otherwise occurring in the mobile institution, since 2001, by comparing them with the actual consumer representation, in practice, in the competitive mobile market (Bandaragoda, 2000).

Finally, these essential institutional aspects create the necessary insights for assessing the extent to which the Mobile institution (rules of the game) and the organisations (the Commission, the

MOBILE POLICY