Drop in the state of telephony services in the last few weeks may be a pointer to poorer services during the yuletide, which is around the corner.
Checks by The Guardian showed that both data and voice services across the networks of the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in the last 25 days have been very poor.

This is coming, amidst a directive by the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Aminu Maida, to service providers in the country to improve quality of service.

Maida, had during his meeting with sector’s stakeholders, including the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the leading telecoms firms in Lagos recently, to as a matter of urgency ensure telephony services are at their best.

He decried the situation where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set for the service providers by the NCC will show almost 100 per cent success rates on papers, “but Quality of Experience is zero.”

Indeed, there have been complaints of fast data depletion; poor connection rate for voice services and failing short message service (SMS), amidst charges.

Subscribers lamented that a N2,000 data bundle, which ordinarily should last for 30 days, now gets depleted within three to five days, at worst, a maximum of seven days.

Speaking with The Guardian, Nnamdi Ejiofor, a grocery shop owner, said he had decided to suspend his data subscription for now as it is eating deep into his earnings. “I only subscribe when I have urgent and very important things to do online, things that would fetch more than the money I put into the subscription.”

For Bimpe Oduwole, a Lagos-based senior company executive, “I can’t understand the situation, you put a call through from this end, it is reading and you are being charged, but you cannot hear the other person. When you decide to send a text, it will roll for several minutes; it will do as if it left your phone, only to discover that it never reached the destination. That apart, data depletion these days is at the highest level.

“If I, a company secretary, can be this bitter about these services, I just wonder how frustrating, SMEs would be. FG should look into this. We shouldn’t experience this, this Christmas season.”

Reacting, President of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMs), Deolu Ogunbanjo, expressed concern that this development may continue during the yuletide season and even the New Year.

Speaking with The Guardian, Ogunbanjo said making calls has become a tall order lately, “as you can be trying for hours and not get through. If you decide to use WhatsApp, your data will deplete very fast and SMS will not be delivered as and when due. It means that doing anything important via your mobile has become a tall order. The operators should up their games.”

The NATCOMs boss, who beckoned on the new NCC boss to look into the matter, said however, that the operators should not be blamed in its entirety.

According to him, operators need more money for upgrades and expansion, “as such, I will call on the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to pay up the N200 billion they owe telecoms firms for using the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). The money (s) are deducted on the spot, so, why has it become so difficult for the banks to pay up until it accumulated to that level.”

He said the operators needed the money to upgrade, expand and tackle congestion on their networks.

Ogunbanjo urged the telecoms operators to approach the court to get justice and recoup their money if the banks are refusing to pay up.
“However, I want to appeal to the operators to please, ensure the services are stable, especially this festive period,” he stated.

While faulting claims of poor services on their network, a senior telecoms executive, who spoke with The Guardian, said the experience could be a result of congestion in one particular area, which sometimes necessitated shedding.

He said it could also be downtime of some sites, “but I can say that no operator is happy when customers can’t make calls, browse the Internet or even send SMS, this is because it means the operator is losing money then, a situation, which is neither good for the firm nor the government, which needs to get tax payments.”

According to him, telephony service will improve, “as we have been prompted to ensure QoS results into QoE.”