MTN subscribers lament poor services

Some MTN subscribers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), on Wednesday, lamented poor services from the mobile network operator in the past few weeks.
The subscribers, who spoke in Abuja, said that they have been experiencing poor and unreliable services both in receiving calls and messages.
They are also complaining of receiving unsolicited calls and messages in spite of the fact that the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) had warned Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to stop sending such messages and calls or face sanction of N5 million or N500,000 per day for as long as the contravention persists.
Mrs Justina Sunday, a subscriber resident of Zuba, FCT, lamented that for the past two weeks or more, she had been finding it difficult to make or receive calls because of the poor network by MTN.
“I have been finding it difficult to either make or receive calls.
“In fact, some people will say they have been calling me since morning, why did I switch off my phone,?’’ she said.
She said that although after trying so many times to make calls, it would eventually connect, adding “this can be frustrating’’.
“We know that there are times when some of these network providers have problems with their network, but it should not be a regular thing,’’ she said.
Mrs Ogechukwu Udeh, a trader at Lugbe Market, FCT said that she was tired of receiving calls from MTN that she did not solicit for, worse still calls came in languages she could not understand.
Udeh said that some of the calls were spoken in Hausa or some strange languages.
“Please I am appealing to MTN to stop disturbing me with such calls,’’ she said.
She added that at times, the quality of service was so bad that people would find it difficult to hear each other’s  conversations.
Mr Johnson Madu, a banker and resident of Kubwa, said most of the network lines used in his office for data was that of  MTN.
“In my place of work, the major line we use for accessing the internet is MTN and the network has been very poor.
“Sometimes, it takes a while before you can finish attending to a customer thereby keeping the rest people on the queue waiting.
“The most annoying part of it is that we need the internet to work,” he said.
Mrs Grace Akinwale, an MTN subscriber resident in Gwarinpa, said that her experience with the provider had been unpleasant in the past few weeks.
She said that she loaded her phone with credit of N1,200 only for a message to be sent to her that it was N200.
“I had to quickly call the Call Centre, because I wanted to use it for data.
“It was later that my data was credited but not before I actually lost about N1,500 credit sent to me by my daugther.
“The credit was mistakenly uploaded in the MTN promo `yafu yafu’, which is supposed to last till April 1, but in two days, I was told it had finished,’’ she said.
Akinwale said that recently, receiving calls had been a big issue as people keep asking if her phone had problems.
Mr Victor Olajide, a resident of Lugbe in FCT, said that he had been receiving messages from MTN that she did not ask for.
He said that MTN had been sending messages asking him to send stop to 2442 but he had not done it yet.
“Why can’t MTN stop the messages themselves instead of bothering me when I have many important things to do,’’? he said.
Mr Joseph Odebala, a civil servant also said that he was tired of getting messages and calls he did not ask for.
“Sometimes when he picks the numbers they will be speaking a language I don’t understand and they say they are waiting for my response.
“Response for what, don’t I know what they are talking about,’’ he said.
He said that he had tried calling the customer care line but they put him on hold for very long time until he got tired.
However, Mr Nuhu Garuba, a resident of Dawaki, observed that he never had issues with his MTN network.
He said that it was a long time in the past that he had any issues with connecting his contacts.
Garuba said that he would always have a backup network line to substitute the one he had in case there were network challenges with any of the network providers.
Mr Hassan Jamil, the Chief Technical Officer of  MTN Nigeria, in a statement on Monday in Abuja by NCC said at an interactive forum that the problems faced by service providers were due to scarcity of FOREX.
“Demand for both voice and data services are on the rise but we are unable to catch up on investment because of scarce FOREX availability.
“We planned 100 sites for Abuja but after a very long time, we were only able to build six because of the bottlenecks of getting approvals and until we resolve these, quality of service will be a mirage, ” Jamil said.