NGIJ Decries Poor MTN Service, Urges NCC To Monitor GSM Services

MTN, one of the leading providers of the Global System for Mobile, GSM Communications is in the news again for the wrong reasons. This time it bothers on the dubious data services provided and the bad network the company has made Nigerians to suffer across the country.

The company no doubt has been a source of happiness for many Nigerians with their several corporate social responsibilities. The likes of MTN Project Fame, Who wants to be a millionaire, MTN Foundation, etc are corporate programs that Nigerians enjoy.

However, aside all these CSR, what really concerns Nigerians is the quality of their products and services which the company is seriously failing at presently.

In a recent opinion poll carried out by Nigerian Guild of Investigative Journalists, NGIJ, subscribers of MTN lament poor network, illegal deductions from their recharge voucher and data. It was gathered that MTN for the past two weeks has been really bad and has given them countless numbers of reasons to quit and settle for other networks. Most of them complained mainly on the call services and data services.

Below are some of the results of the poll:

-Adeyemi Olufunke says MTN has been really bad for some days now, whenever I call, people don’t here me, I keep hearing strange sounds, It wasn’t just for a day, even till now as I speak, sometimes when I try to recharge, I get error messages that the service isn’t available

=Olagunju Fola – MTN made me suffer o, I tried to recharge directly from my bank a week ago to my MTN line, it kept on saying the service is unavailable, I tried for five times all to no avail, so it thought the problem was my bank, I then tried to recharge on my Airtel line, it worked immediately so I knew it was MTN. Unfortunately, on the morning of the next day, I started getting alert and the airtime I tried to load started coming in, it came in the five times I tried, I just felt like crying.

– Amaka Ezinne – MTN Data is just the worst as I speak, before now, I use 1 Gig for almost a month but now, it barely lasts for four days, it’s just somehow to me, how can I be wasting N500 every four days to sub on MTN, it’s so annoying, I’m looking for a better network now,I’m already planning to leave MTN as soon as possible

-Uche Isreal – MTN is really draining us, they don’t have anything to offer anymore, MTN N500 Data plan for 750Mb is a scam, they claim to give us 500MB and 250MB to use in the midnight, it’s all lies, it doesn’t last me for two days.

-Anthony Evans – This MTN case is an issue of discuss in my area, when I think of it I just feel sad because how can I be subscribing almost every day, I am an online marketer and I need to be online most times but MTN just wants to send me out of business, I have started using another network though.

Investigation also reveals that MTN users in Abeokuta could not make calls, send or receive messages for three days. “There have been no service from MTN network in Abeokuta since the night of November 14th and the situation had made many customers of the service provider uncomfortable”.

Solanke Ayodeji Taiwo An Abeokuta based journalist and publisher of Amebo News (www.amebo9jafeed.com.ng) said due to lack of network and internet facilities powered by MTN, subscribers could neither make calls to their loved ones nor conduct their business transactions.

He added that in Abeokuta, residents lament the situation, wondering why it is difficult for government and its agencies to sanction MTN for the reoccurrence poor network.

 

In his view, Fatai Jibola Kehinde, a resident of Abeokuta, “MTN network is the only one I have so I haven’t been able to dial out since Wednesday evening because there has been no network.

 

“It is bad enough that their data services are very expensive when compared with other data providers, yet we still cannot have access to their services after we had subscribed.

 

“I have not been able to make calls since Sunday night till now and I have lost a lot because of the kind of business I do.

 

“The appropriate authorities must sanction those responsible for it.”

Susan Bello, another resident of the town, said: “I have been unable to make calls to my family and close relatives since on Sunday because there had been no network on my cell phone.

 

“We have to cope with the exorbitant call rates charged by MTN and now we also have to deal with this.

 

“I’m definitely porting from this network to another because I can’t take it anymore.”

 

 

 

Olayinka Husseinat told our correspondent that she had migrated to another network.

 

Husseinat said: “I have been contemplating for a while on whether to migrate to another network or not, but this incident had given me the perfect reason to leave.

“I have bought another service provider’s sim card and I’m going to port so that I can retain my old number.”

With these, it seems MTN is on their way out of the business scene in Nigeria and if care isn’t taken, it will cost them a lot. It will be recalled that some years back,MTN was sanctioned by the NCC over issues bothering on sim registration

Calling on Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC to discharge its statutory responsibility, the spokesperson of NGIJ, Rahamon Aliagan noted that “The Guild will soon initiate a process that would encourage MTN subscriber to sek redress through a legal assistance from his group. Aliagan who also doubled as the publisher of Time Nigerian, an Abuja based Magazine added that a petition has been sent to Consumer Protection Council,CPC over the poor service shunning out by MTN. He therefore calls on government to wade into the issue as failure to do so suggest that the government is collaborating with Telecommunication Company to defraud Nigerians.

 

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