Telecommunications Services In Nigeria – A Call For Help!!

In 2001 when the first set of mobile licences where given out by the NCC, our joys knew no bounds, we felt like finally nought-nine-nought was no longer the exclusive preserve of the rich and the dubious. We all bought handsets and sims at very exorbitant prices, still we jubilated and “called on our Gizms”. The 3 networks, then, grew their infrastructure little by little, and made money like never before. It was all good. Everybody seemed to be happy.

Fast forward to 2011, and the services rendered by the networks (who have now been joined by others) have sunk to depths so low that one begins to wonder if the event of 2001 was even progress at all. Quality of service, be it voice, data, or even customer service is abysmal. Let me take the self acclaimed one time “best connection”, and now “everywhere you go” network as an example.

In the last 2 months, MTN Nigeria services have become so bad that most of the time your handset gets reduced to a glorified timepiece and probably an item of jewelry (if you use an expensive phone). You make a call, and the person on the other side won’t hear you. You attempt many more times but still you get the same “hello, hello” from the other side. You drop the call in frustration and the person on the other end calls you back. Voila! you can both hear each other (and maybe a 3rd voice that belongs to a stranger speaking in a strange tongue) but the call doesn’t even last 120 seconds and you get a disconnection tone. Your call has been dropped by the network. You then attempt to send a common text message. For this one you have to attempt a resend like 5 times before the 160 characters gets sent. You simply die inside and consider flushing your phone down the loo. I can go on and on….and on.

What of the Blackberry Internet Service for blackberry smartphone users? That looks like it has morphed into a corporate scam. MTN came dangling carrots, they reduced the tariff from 5000 naira a month to three thousand naira a month. We were all so happy we held hands and sang kumbaya in elation as if it was kwanza (even though that price is still higher than what is obtainable in the US and UK, I digress…). Little did we know we had run into a trap. A trap of the poorest services ever, the nail bitting, frustrating type. For like 3 weeks running, I have only managed to use my browser at night (if I am able to even use it at all), I can’t use my social media apps conveniently because the network will simply not work. It takes ages for an IM to drop, if you use it in an emergency…well lets just say God help you. This was very evident during the last elections as citizen reporters couldn’t send reports from the polling units on their smartphones without extended periods of service outage. It felt like MTN (and indeed the other networks) was trying to sabotage the process of carrying out our civic duties.

What could be the reason for this seemingly surrender by MTN to shameful levels of service? I spoke to some telecommunications engineers handling some of MTN’s switches, and what they told me confirmed my fears and the fears of many that MTN’s network could no longer cope with the influx of subscribers who had fallen for all their enticing promos like lower BIS tariffs and “magic number. Instead of finding a very quick solution to this by fixing the messed up network, my sources revealed , MTN is busy trading blames with their 3rd party vendors on who is killing it. All of these to the detriment of the fee paying customers. What happened to the age-long mantra “The customer is king”? We obviously are now the slaves. We recharge our phones hoping to get service, but we end up enabling our “masters” to launder money to South Africa.

That reminds me, we have a regulatory body, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC. Two of NCC’s roles are as below:

The protection and promotion of the interests of consumers against unfair practices including but not limited to matters relating to tariffs and charges for and the availability and quality of communications services, equipment and facilities.

The development and monitoring of performance standards and indices relating to the quality of telephone and other communications services and facilities supplied to consumers in Nigeria having regard to the best international performance indicators.

Has the NCC lived up to the above with regards to the quality of service, monitoring of standards of communications services in Nigeria? It is a resounding “NO” across the length and breadth of Nigeria. This makes me suspicious of the NCC as an agency of government, a regulator. I think the exit of Engineer Ndukwe might have left the NCC to succumb to the Nigerian factor. The NCC is not carrying out one of the most cardinal reasons why it was set up – ensuring that customers get a good deal. Come on, we pay a lot of money to get service from the Telcos. Can the NCC please look up?

I have chosen to make MTN the example of what way below average, terrible, and criminal services look like because they without doubt have the largest subscriber base in Nigeria, they also pride themselves in having the largest and best network in Nigeria. If this is what the  largest and the best can provide for us, and the NCC, the industry watchdog, is either busy lapping up honey or has simply decided to go to bed with who they are supposed to watch, then what do we expect from the smaller networks? Well, the answer isn’t rocket science – horrendous service. That in actual fact is what we are getting from Glo, Airtel, and Etisalat. The NCC is slowly turning to another money guzzling, poorly performing government entity. It is shameful. I am livid with anger!

Hopefully, with the way the last elections went, the incoming government will see the need to be accountable and responsive to the electorate who voted them in with a lot of faith, maybe, just maybe, this government will ask NCC to give account of its stewardship so far vis-à-vis the current service insult that the likes of MTN are throwing in our faces, in the faces of customers who do not mind spending their hand earned money to get quality service.

PS: my fastlink internet connection from MTN broke 5 times between when I began to write this article and when I typed this last full-stop.