Over 12 million telecom subscribers in Nigeria abandoned the services of telco firms across Nigeria between the fourth quarter of 2016 and second quarter of 2017.
This, investigations showed, was as a result of alleged poor quality services, and high cost of data, among others.
Data obtained from sources at the Nigerian Communication Commission revealed that eight million of the affected subscribers moved from MTN Nigeria to other (Internet) service providers as they lamented difficulties surfing the Internet or making voice calls, over the last months under review.
A study of network operators’ active lines obtained from the NCC showed that the quality of services rendered by the service providers dropped drastically between March 2017 and June 2017.
Within the period under review, active lines dropped from 151.9 million to 142.6 million, which means about 9.3 million subscribers abandoned their lines.
Over 50 per cent of these figures are MTN subscribers.
Similarly, the NCC’s quarterly subscriber operators’ data revealed that among the four major telcos in the country, MTN is the worst hit as torrents of its subscribers abandoned the service of the firm between Q4, 2016 and Q2, 2017.
Its subscribers’ base dropped from 61.8 million as at December 2016 to 53.09 million by end, Q2 2017, which means over eight million lines were abandoned within the period.
While Glo and Airtel increased their active subscribers’ base from 37.3 million, and 34.11 million to 37.4 million and 34.12 million, respectively, 9Mobile lost over two million subscribers within the period under review.
CPC, NCC HAVE COMPROMISED – Subscribers
Subscribers have, however, blamed the development on what they described as negligence on the part of the NCC and Consumer Protection Council.
According to them, the regulators appear to be overwhelmed or must have compromised on their core duties, which is to protect the interest of Nigerian subscribers.
A mobile money operator, Mr. Kayode Bello, alleged that for several weeks, the quality of services of telcos, especially MTN, had been devastating, making him lose patronage and fortunes.
He said, “The data has been wobbling for two weeks and I won’t be compensated with even a week when it expires by next week. After several complaints to the customer care, they argued that the fault must have been from my device; that there was nothing wrong with the network, which I believe is a mere gimmick.
“How can it be my device, when some of my friends actually complained of similar challenge. As far as I am concerned, the firm has been robbing me of my hard-earned money and I demand an intervention by the NCC and a refund from the company.”
An independent subscriber, Ms. Laura Aina, lamented that for a week, the quality of voice service of MTN and Etisalat, her two major lines, had nose-dived.
According to the resident of Magboro, Ogun State, the development could have been an industry issue but she observed that it was rampant with the network that claimed to be the biggest in the country (MTN).
She noted, “I believe the current managers of the regulatory bodies have either derailed or compromised their stand for quality service. The immediate past administrations of CPC and NCC performed tremendously, compared to the current managers, who have not called anyone to order, despite the over bearing poor quality of service subscribers are forced to pay for. “The situation has forced me to abandon the lines as I ported to other lines.”
Another web developer, Mr. Segun Mustapha, has not also been lucky with the strength of the network service delivered by MTN. The graduate of Computer Science from the University of Lagos lamented the delay he witnessed while downloading or uploading images on the Internet in the last three weeks.
“MTN does between 20 and 40 kilobites per second and that reduces the speed of the image I download. The network signal is always frustrating and wasteful. Sometimes, it can be poor for four hours or throughout the day. Instead of addressing the issues, customer care agents have been asking me to restart my device over and over again,” he lamented.
REGULATORS LACK INNOVATION
– Advocate
President and Founder, a not-for-profit organisation, Consumer Advocacy Forum, Nigeria, Ms. Olusola Salako, agreed with subscribers that the regulators could do more to protect Nigerians from the fleecing claws of telcos.
She said, “Subscribers are being treated like they are at the mercy of telcos as the NCC and CPC have neglected them. While NCC should compel service providers to go back to the drawing table and introduce ways to please their subscribers, CPC, in its own case, should ensure subscribers are adequately compensated for their losses.
“They must listen to the consumers that have been fleeced overtime and introduce affordable packages that will meet their needs. If that is done, the telcos will make money because Nigeria is a large market that is filled with people that like to talk at affordable rates.”
“The regulators should introduce a short code message to report infractions to them without delay, to benefit the telecom population. A lot of smart phone users need to be educated on how to preserve their data and the basic thing to do when network is poor, because in the process, some waste it and think the telcos have fleeced them,” she told The Point.
HIGH COST OF DATA, INADEQUATE CAPACITY, BANE OF GROWTH – Stakeholders
Stakeholders have blamed the development on the high cost of data, current poor infrastructure, especially poor power supply, and challenges of inadequate network capacity faced by service providers in the country.
The Vice-President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, explained that it was a fact that the cost of accessing the Internet was expensive in Nigeria, adding that it was important for operators to join forces to drop the cost of Internet and exchange point in the country if they were determined to curb the decline in subscribers’ base.
According to him, the effort is all about localising Internet traffic, and as long as it is local, the cost will significantly drop.
He said, “The cost of Internet is really expensive in Nigeria, because we have to find a way of reaching the content. When you talk of Internet, you are talking of two kinds of networks – highball network and content network. Highball networks are the ones subscribers get from providers such as MTN, Airtel, Glo and Etisalat, among others. The people who use that network browse for information and that information is with content providers and those content providers are Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, among others.
“But because most of them are not in Nigeria, the people browsing will have to find a way to reach that content. The farther the content is away from the user, the more expensive it is. For example, Nigeria is importing rice, which is why it is expensive. Ordinarily, in countries that produce it, it is cheaper. So, what we are doing at Exchange Point is that we are trying to bring more content into Nigeria and by doing that, it means the cost of Internet will drop.”
The President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Mr. Lanre Ajayi, explained that operators spent over N5 billion monthly on power generation for their base stations, especially on places that are not connected to the National Grid.
According to him, the adoption of solar and hybrid power in some base stations have not resulted in any significant savings. These, to him, have impacted negatively on the operational capacities and increase in operational and capital expenditure of telecom firms in Nigeria with the end result of poor quality of service delivery.
“While the operator’s expenses show 80 per cent for power generation in Nigeria, it is mere five per cent in Malawi, where power from the grid is stable. There is a problem of inadequate network capacity, both in terms of number of base stations, network switching capacity and transmission network capacity. These contribute partly to the problem of poor call set-up rates, high rate of call dropouts and poor call completion rates.
“On the issue of transmission capacity, there is low availability of fibre backbone linking various parts of the country, coupled with the slow pace of deployment of high capacity microwave backbone links. It is believed that more investment would be made towards network expansions when the operating environment becomes friendlier.”
