MTN Zambia is taking legal action against the country's telecom watchdog, ZICTA (Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority), over the decision to ban promotions.

Last week the Regulator banned all promotions run by the country's three mobile phone operators as a result of alleged failure on the part of the operators to heed calls for network improvement.

ZICTA affirmed that no promotions will be approved until it is satisfied with the quality of services provided to consumers.

At the time the Regulator's public relations manager Ngabo Nankonde said, "the move was necessitated by the ever deteriorating services being offered by MTN, Airtel and Zamtel."

MTN has now taken ZICTA to court over the move claiming that it the decision was made before the Regulator concluded investigations on the quality of its network.

The country's second largest operator after Airtel wants the Lusaka High Court to reverse ZICTA's decision to ban the promotions.

ZICTA said its action was prompted by technical reports conducted by quarters one to three of this year which measured, among others, five sets of parameters namely; call set up time, call drop rate, call set-up success rate, SMS sending time and successful SMS ratio.