The Citizen
Despite recent investments in infrastructure
upgrade, the quality of services offered by MTN Nigeria has reached the lowest
ebb, no thanks to poor facilities deployed in the purported upgrade.
MTN invested $1.3 billion on the network upgrade in
2012 alone, a development which was supposed to enhance quality of its
operations.
The telephony company embarked on an extensive
network optimisation and swap-out exercise in June 2012, which is now at an
advanced stage.
However, for most subscribers on the MTN network
they have never had it so bad. Poor quality service continued at frustrating
levels especially during festive season across the country.
In the South East it came close to system collapse
as most people could not make or receive calls, while short messages continued
to bounce back.
THE CITIZEN investigation showed that the ugly
situation is traceable to the use of cheap products in the purported upgrading
of its network by the service provider.
Sometime in 2012, MTN Nigeria and a Chinese based
ZTE Corporation signed a contract to build GSM/UMTS networks in Nigeria. As
part of the agreement, ZTE will help MTN Nigeria modernise and expand its
mobile network in two of the country’s most economically developed regions by
providing its innovative SDR-based Uni-RAN solution.
But according THE CITIZEN investigation, MTN decided
to choose ZTE as its supplier principally to cut cost and not necessarily to
improve its services.
MTN Nigeria, it was learnt, fell for ZTE whose offer
was at a rate far cheaper than what other credible suppliers were ready to take
but it was gathered that the quality of ZTE’s base transiting stations are not
as rugged and efficient as the ones been changed.
Nevertheless, MTN Nigeria still settled for ZTE,
with a projection that doing so would reduce its operating expenses by more
than 50 per cent, which would also translate into a total cost of ownership
saving over a s pan of seven years of 40 per cent after modernization. In
addition, it was also learnt that ZTE offered the network an irresistible
payment incentive that spans for five years which invariably swayed the juicy
contract.
In all these, the subscribers’ interest and the
primary goal of quality enhancement were traded off for cost-cutting.
MTN Nigeria, which controls about 48 per cent of the
telephone subscribers in Nigeria, is the most profitable GSM Operator in the
country at the moment.
Since the upgrade contract kicked in, MTN
subscribers have not experience any improvement; rather they are groaning under
worsening quality conditions.
It has become very difficult for its teeming
subscribers to make smooth calls within and across networks.
THE CITIZEN reliably gathered that in the south-east
for instance, the last two weeks was hell for most of the subscribers on the
network as they faced challenges of incessant drop calls, call diversion, weak
call signals to activate calls, poor voice clarity, delay in SMS delivery,
among others.
The Nigerian Communications Commission recently
conducted a Nationwide Benchmark Drive Test on MTN, Globacom, Airtel and
Etisalat network and MTN was trailing other networks.
The research was the first of such tests and it
concentrated on Call Completion Rate, which encompasses the major network Key
Performance Indicators (call drop and congestion).
The service providers were ranked in Lagos and six
Geo-Political zones of South-West, South-East, South-South, North-Central,
North-East and North-West.
The study by NCC revealed that MTN finished third in
three zones; namely North-Central with 74 per cent, South-South with 71 per
cent, and North-East with 58 per cent. It was fourth in the other zones such as
Lagos with 72 per cent, South-West with 72 per cent, North-West with 59 per
cent, and South-East with 53 per cent.
Meanwhile, it is busy advertising that Posted about
63 days ago | 0 comment it has commenced network upgrade through its network
modernisation and swap –out exercise, that will address the situation and put
an end to subscriber challenges on its network.
But unfortunately even the areas already upgraded,
poor quality of service has been on the increase in recent times without any
improvement from the service provider.
According to Mrs. Chimobi, one of its subscribers
based in Onitsha, Anambra State, her experience was very frustrating. She said
that most times her calls could not connect, and her messages were either
undelivered or took time to deliver. “The worst is that when you eventually get
your calls through, you hardly hear the other side. Meanwhile, you will be
charged throughout the duration of the calls,” she lamented.
She said that all her Christmas messages could not
leave her phone until a few days after Christmas. “I have never seen a thing
like that. I could not send Christmas wishes to my people and they thought it
was deliberate, not knowing that it was network problem,” she said.
Another subscriber in Owerri, Imo state said that
they had to drop the sim card for other networks and that was how they were
able to reach out and were reached too. He said that for most people, the
season was agonising because of poor quality service from network providers.
“I made frantic effort to call out. Not because
there was no credit in my phone but due to bad network. It is something that
NCC needs to look into. They come to Nigeria and are installing cheap
equipments from China in the name of cost cutting, while the subscribers groan.
This cannot continue this way,” said Mazi Okwuoma, a civil servant.
In the same vein, Sunday Asogwa, a student of Enugu
State University of Science and technology told THE CITIZEN that he blames
operators for poor service quality experienced in his neighborhood, which he
said, was already affecting business in Enugu metropolis. He called on
operators to come up with lasting solution to the continuous drop in service
quality across networks.
All efforts to reach the General Manager, Corporate
Communications for MTN, Mrs. Funmi Omogbenigun proved abortive.
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