* Mr. Majolagbe queried telecom providers' poor service delivery
In the first week of February, The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) fined Airtel, Globacom and MTN the sum of N647, 500,000 million for failing to meet the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for quality of service in the month of January.
Apart from the monetary fine, the telecom providers were also barred from further sale of subscriber identity module (SIM).
Nigerian phone users’ complaint over poor service delivery of network providers is as old as the advent of telecommunication into the
country since the turn of the millennium.
Phone users, all over the country, have been calling on the NCC and other authorities concerned to take steps that would make telecom providers to deliver satisfactory services to their subscribers.
But up till date, according to the ordeals of Nigerian phone users, the performances of all the network providers in the country, in terms of service delivery, have been described as unsatisfactory, poor and exploitative.
Mr Ayo Majolagbe, 28, who is based in Abuja, while narrating his ordeal in the hands of Airtel, said the network provider usually deduct a sum from his account every month as “subscription fee” of what he never subscribed for.
“I noticed that each time I load a certain amount of credit on my phone and confirmed that my account has been credited, another message would follow that the same amount has been deducted for my monthly Job subscription.
How can I subscribe for job when I have a company of about 18 staff that I pay their salaries?,” Majolagbe queried.
He added: “I have called their customer care countless time but all to no avail.
“They would tell me to hang off and wait for a message. I can tell you that I am still having that issue up to this moment.”
Another telecom subscriber, Mr Julius Akhedi, 36, who resides in Yaba, said he once missed a job interview due to the inefficiency of his service provider, MTN.
He said: “I did a test at one multinational company and was sent a text that I was successful to move to the next phase which was supposed to be a phone interview that was scheduled for the following week at a specified time.
“It was very disappointing that I had no signal on my phone throughout that day.
“Even when I inserted my SIM card into different phones, there was no service signal.
“Eventually, I lost the job.
“ The most disappointing thing was that when a friend tried to call the customer care through another network provider, the customer service line would only play music for hours and would say “thank you for calling, good day, without connecting me to any operator.”
It was a tragic experience for Mr Odigwe Mark, 45, a Globacom user who lives in Apapa, Lagos.
According to him, he lost his only daughter due to communication hitch caused by the poor network service provided by Globacom.
While narrating what happened he said: “While I was on leave late last year, my 10-year-old daughter had a terminal stomach attack which we usually suppress with an anti-dote that was kept at home.
“When she had the attack on this fateful day, I couldn’t find the anti-dote close by.
“I tried to call my wife who has gone to the market but the service operator kept saying ‘you are not allowed to call this number’.
“It was on our way to the hospital when we couldn’t contact her mother to get the antidote that my daughter died.”
This inefficiency in service delivering by telecom providers in Nigeria, according to Mrs Ayokunle Bukola, a Starcomms subscriber at Ayobo, is the reason why most people go about with more than a phone.
“My main line is Starcomms but I also have three other GSM service phones.
“It is not because I am that rich because I don’t want to be let down by any of them.
“It is a burden on me to have more than a phone but it pays when you compare the cost you would incur if you can’t make calls or receive calls if you are a businessman like,” Mrs Ayokunle stated.
Proffering a solution to the continued poor service delivering being rendered by telecom providers, Mr Harrison Smith, a MTN user from Agbor Area in Delta State, identified the need for NCC to fashion out a stern policy that would compel the network providers to provide Nigerians with telecom services that are obtainable in other civilised countries.
“There was a time that the NCC introduced annual customers/service providers’ platform where all the network providers and interested customers would gather and discussed dissatisfactions, commendations and questions relating to the telecom operators services in Nigeria.
“I wonder why we do not have the same today,” he stated.
Recently, the President of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Mr Deolu Ogunbanjo, asked what NCC are doing with the fines telecom operators pay when they are sanctioned.
He said such fines should go to subscribers in form of airtime or data to compensate them for the poor service delivered to them by these telecom companies.
“Why would the government (NCC) who earns revenues from the calls we make be the one that would benefit from fines paid by telecom operators for the poor services they rendered Nigerian subscribers?,” Ogunbanjo questioned.
Source Nigeria info
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