Many mobile subscribers in the country, disgruntled with the persistent poor telecoms services, have condemned the negative impact the menace is having on social and business growth and have blamed the network operators for their woes, Aminu Imam and Chris Alu reports.
Stakeholders in the telecommunications sector have expressed dissatisfaction with the poor quality of services of GSM service providers in the country,which has persisted for several months now.
A cross-section of subscribers who spoke to Peoples Daily said they were unhappy as they were not getting value for their money from the service providers.
A graphic designer, Mr. Ilemona Umaru, said that the services from the networks were poor, adding that he could hardly make complete calls without problems.
“You find that when you try to call someone, especially in this season, you can hardly hear the person at the other side.You never have the satisfaction of talking to someone, it’s either the call gets cut half way into your conversation or you would be hearing some kind of unpleasant noise at the background.
“The regulators should sanction them or there should be a limit of the number of subscribers they should have because I think that part of the problem is because the networks are over loaded.
Another subscriber, Mrs. Adejo Peace, expressed the same feelings, saying that the service providers deducted money for poor network reception.“The most annoying thing is that your money is always deducted even when your call does not get through.
“Why should I pay for something I did not use?” she queried.
“The worst of it is that even when you call the customer care, they cannot proffer any solution for you rather they would make excuses why your money was deducted.You can imagine that my cell-phone was stolen and for about three weeks now I have done the well-come back-pack, yet the network is still writing `emergency’.They are just there to collect people’s money,’’ Peace said.
Mrs. Halima Ahmed, a teacher, however, had a different view as she commended the service providers for effective service delivery, saying: “I have no reason to complain, though at times there might be a little hitch.But I think that most of the complaints from subscribers could be as a result of the Yuletide because of multiple calls.
Ahmed appealed to the Federal Government to assist the mobile operators in the provision of infrastructure, adding that this would go a long way in reducing their challenges.
He also called on members of the public to stop vandalising existing infrastructure for the good of all citizens.
Speaking to Peoples Daily on the poor service of the service providers, a disgruntled customer who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “As a loyal MTN subscriber for the past several years, hundreds of thousands of other Nigerians have definitely been a victim to their profit maximization strategies and general lack of conscience and/or integrity in the way they conduct their business in this great country.
“South Africa, MTN’s base, is a saturated market with nowhere near the level of opportunity that Nigeria has to offer, and so the company decided to pitch its tent here, and it brought along a service, what it did not bring along were: Good manners, Ethical behaviour, Reliable network, just to name a few.
“Don’t you wonder why their network is the most ‘ported away from’ network in Nigeria? Despite the ‘Saka’ advert, Etisalat has more people porting to their network from MTN. This is according to NCC data. Those of us who are still on MTN are just looking for a great reason and moment to leave.No matter how many Don Jazzy’s, or Prince, they get to produce and recite silly songs for their near 419 service, they should all know that we are just ‘Jonesing’, still being 0803 loyalists. However, their shoddy service will eventually cause us to port”, he lamented.
Another MTN subscriber, Miss Dolabomi Taiwo,said I want to express my displeasure at MTN’s data service. The company has a nasty system error that keeps deducting money from my main account even while I have an active data package. I have complained many times to the organisation’s customer service agents but all they keep telling me is ‘‘Sorry for the inconvenience.’’ I believe this error is peculiar to Smartphones especially, when one is downloading data. I have used other networks and they don’t offer this sort of mediocre service.
It could be recalled that MTN, alongside Globacom and Airtel have been sanctioned by The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) the sum of N647.5 million for breach of key performance indicators (KPIs) and poor quality of service for the month of January 2014.
Etisalat was the only operator given a clean bill as it met all the set KPIs.
In letters dated February 19, 2014, addressed to each of the affected companies, NCC said after collating statistics from the network operating centres of the operators in the month of January, discovered that the services provided by MTN, Airtel and Globacom fell below the KPI published by it in 2013.
A breakdown of the sanctions indicates that Globacom was penalised, N277.5 million for three breaches, while MTN and Airtel got sanctioned N185 million each for two breaches.
Four critical KPIs were set by NCC – Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), Drop Call Rate (DCR), Traffic Channel Congestion (TCHCONG) and Stand Alone Dedicated Control Channel Congestion (SDCONG).
With a target of 98 per cent for CSSR, MTN, Airtel, and Globacom failed to meet the target in January. They scored 96.85 per cent, 96.99 per cent and 96.89 per cent respectively.
NCC set a target of 1 percent in the DCR category. The audit report referred to by NCC in its letter stated that for the month of January, MTN and Globacom failed to meet the target, while Airtel exceeded the target with a score of 0.84 percent.
For the SDCONG KPI, with a target of 0.20 percent, Airtel and Globacom failed to meet the target, scoring 0.40 percent and 0.58 percent respectively, while MTN exceeded the target with a score of 0.17 percent.
For the last KPI, TCHCONG, with a target of 2 per cent, all the three networks exceeded the target, as MTN scored 0.55 percent; Globacom – 0.79 percent; and Airtel – 0.79 percent. In summary, MTN failed to meet the targets set in the Quality of Service Regulations for the CSSR and DCR computations; Globacom failed to meet the targets set for CSSR, DCR and SDCONG computations; while Airtel failed to meet the targets for CSSR and SDCONG computations.
The operators are expected to pay the sanctions on or before March 7, 2014 (last Friday). Should they fail to pay the sanctions within the stipulated deadline, each of them will be liable to pay N2.5 million daily, as long as the contravention persists.
All the three operators were barred by NCC from selling new SIM cards throughout the month of March, 2014, with effect from March 1 to March 31; barred from churning or deleting from their networks inactive (or non-revenue generating SIMs) during the period March 1 to March 31; barred from supplying new SIM cards from their warehouses to dealers or third parties during the same period; and stopped from all promotions until the identified KPIs considered are positively addressed.
Speaking during the First National Telecoms Subscriber Summit organised by the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers, the majority of subscribers at the event frowned on the services of the providers in several areas of their operations.
They blamed the operators for poor service quality, which they said, was already affecting businesses in the country.
As such, they called on the operators to come up with lasting solutions to the continuous drop in service quality across networks.
Poor Quality of Service has been a major problem in the country over the past few years and the NCC recently fined GSM companies to the tune of N1.17bn for failing to provide quality services on their networks.
In a presentation titled, ‘The Consumer in the Eyes of the Regulator,’ the Executive Vice-Chairman, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, who was represented by the Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Tony Ojobo, said mobile subscribers were major stakeholders in the telecoms industry.
He said that one of NCC’s mandates was to protect and promote the interests of consumers against unfair practices from service providers, adding that the commission would ensure a paradigm shift from mere service provision and delivery to consumer satisfaction.
The Director-General, Consumer Protection Council, Mrs. Ify Umenyi, who was represented by Mr. Abiodun Obimuyiwa, said the level of consumerism in Nigeria was gradually increasing as more consumers now demanded that their rights be respected.
She called on telecoms companies and other service providers to respect the rights of consumers at all times.
