Subscribers mull protest march to NCC over drop in quality of telecoms services
There were unprecedented frustrations and anger fuming out from several subscribers over what they described as the worst week of poor Quality of Services (QoS) across all GSM networks in Nigeria last week.
Though efforts to get the position of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Sunday failed, many of the Lagos and Abuja subscribers who spoke to our correspondents said they if the services fail to improve early this week, they will be compelled to carry placards and march to the national head office of NCC in Abuja and its regional office in Lagos to register their grievances officially.
Unfortunately, the observed unprecedented drop in QoS is coming barely one week after the regulator had issued a warning to service providers that it will not hesitate to wield the big stick if any network is defaulting on the standard QoS.
Whereas over 60 per cent of the complainants were pointing to a particular network as being the worst both in Lagos and Abuja, others say the drop in service quality is across boards.
Weekend, a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted many subscribers in Abuja as describing the QoS of a particular service provider as “absolutely frustrating’’ in making calls to their contacts.
Within the period of the hiccup last week, efforts to reach any of the corporate chiefs of the networks failed as either none of them picked their calls or their phones are not even ringing in the first instance meaning that they are even suffering what other subscribers were suffering.
While many subscribers of the same network in Lagos said they cannot even see common service bar on their phones for days, others lament of repeated drop calls throughout last week.
Only recently, a report released by a research group on ICT and telecoms said many of the networks have drastically reduced or completely suspended investments on their networks due to forex scarcity and planned exit. It was not however clear if the massive drop in QoS within the period under review can be traced to the development.
However, experts say if the situation fails to change for the better, the protest may take place as soon as possible.
