The Thieving By Communication Networks -By IfeanyiChukwu Afuba

For Nigeria’s mobile communication networks, twenty – five years of operation in Nigeria has been sweet. Over two decades of poor services brought illicit profits. But the last ten years or so of consumer rip – offs has been super for business. These are conquering times for the telecom companies. They are rewriting the concept of monopoly. Economic monopoly is no longer when there’s only one player in a sector. The mobile operators have shown that  conspiracy of sharp practices by as many as one hundred investors is as good as a monopoly. Their modus operandi amount to a swindle of Nigerians. The networks realise they have the Nigerian consumer where they want them. They have secured for themselves a free trade zone where consumers have no rights. They presently have the consumer cornered and helpless.

A number of factors are at the centre of the mobile communication companies’ exploitation of Nigerians. First, is their common disposition to underperformance. Perhaps, there’s also an angle of incompetence to it. Then, there’s  greed. Another is the “siddon look” attitude of the Ministry of Communications and National Communication Commission.

Even by African standards, the services provided by the three or four major players in Nigeria are mediocre. Indications are that they operate sub – standard equipment. Worse still, the second – rate and third – rate machines are not duly maintained and manned. Like our banks and many private businesses, manpower is kept at the lowest possible level towards maximising profit.  With these critical deficiencies, the telecom players function to provide Nigerians stress rather than services. With the regulatory agencies unwilling or unable to enforce standards and ethics, the consumer is condemned to a nightmare of shortchanging. It does not matter which network you run to. Wherever you go, the same bungling of services, underperformance and cheating await the consumer, perhaps in slightly varying degrees.

Call failures cut across networks in several complexions. They include but are not limited to call diversion, unavailability of dialled number, call interference, sudden call termination and inaudible call. The latter ranks about the most grievous of the customer experience. It adds to the consumer’s frustration of inability to make a call, the woe of paying for service not provided. The very act of call meter beginning to read without sound processing between two numbers is fraudulent. If there is loss of audio from the very first moment of “connection”, there is no call. It is contradictory to suggest that numbers have been hooked without sound transmission. What constitutes a call is communication between two parties. To that extent, activation of charge by the caller’s network when there is no audio, amounts to stealing. What compensation is available for the losses of the consumer? What instruments have been put in place to nip in the bud such electronic malfunction? If control measures were deployed, why are they not working?

Trying to use the internet can be an ordeal. More often than not, network signal is weak. It sometimes surges but that usually turns out a flash in the pan. The rise in strength is only momentarily.  Just flickers. Fluctuation better captures the situation. The signal rises and drops, rises and drops for extended periods. Sometimes, it just stands still at very low strength for God – knows – how – long. Man is an optimistic being; so you tag along at gate of the site you’re trying to access, hopeful to soon reach the destination. Meanwhile, the data usage is reading, counting the long time of epileptic signal as service enjoyed by the customer. Again, that is plain robbery. The consumer is being made to pick the bills of the networks’ underperformance. What then is the responsibility of the network operators?  As it were, the networks can afford to relax, and have in fact, embarked on holidays, confident that their inefficiency will continue to be underwritten by hapless customers. And the regulatory agencies see nothing, hear nothing; do not experience these atrocious operations of the communication companies, and therefore do nothing.

On the face of it, the networks have moved to provide details of their charges by publishing daily data usage. In reality, this is no more than a public relations stunt. The daily count lacks transparency and consistency. There is something inherently faulty about the process and the solid evidence comes from the testimony of the networks themselves. Every online subscriber would have at one time or the other received the  sly marketing notice: _Oops! You do not have an active data plan to use the internet._  It has turned out again and again that this claim of depleted data was false. Often, more messages stating data balance would follow the false alarm. When the subsequent messages give different data balance, which one is correct? The communication companies have not been known to apologise for their misinformation. They just carry on as if nothing untoward happened. The sending of “Oops, you do not have an active data plan” when the user has data balance is proof of a grave error in the system. These contradictions taken together render the daily data posts unreliable. The data consumption figures are further flawed by the discrepancies in similar settings. Investigations have shown that even the same extent of online activity on different days attracts substantial differences in data usage posted by communication networks. Irreconcilable characteristics in the operations of the telecom players goes to one end: there is a fundamental problem in the system.

The corrupt tendency of the communication firms is also evident in their deceptive product promotions. Many of the adverts are crafted to entice and ambush the customer at the point of no return. A five thousand naira data package advertised for 20GB ends up being for 16GB at the last minute. Play and win competitions vigorously marketed as participation – free introduces costs after a few rounds. There seems no end to the duplicity of the telecom businesses. Unable to provide their clientele decent services, yet, they keep scrambling for more subscribers.

Their effrontery is as loud as their capacity to fleece Nigerians. And in all this systematic duping of Nigerians, the NCC sleeps on in blissful peace. Any wonder that cable television operators in Nigeria have no intention of changing from monthly charge to pay per view format? What is taken for granted in other countries, we climb mountains and cross deserts to access. Where is the national assembly and their oversight patriotism?

You can almost touch the feeling of “no shaking” accompanying the networks’ reign of impunity. Their sense of self – assurance oozes like that of bad elements in the Police Force who stand before bail – is – free – sign at police stations to extort release money from arrested suspects. It’s the season of telecom networks. Overcome by his own sense of power, Ukpabi Asika brushed off his critics in 1972 with this triumphalism: onye ube lulu olacha. He who has come to good fortune enjoys it thoroughly. His kinsman, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik of Africa, gave him a stinging caution. No condition is permanent, says the old mammy wagon that plies the dilapidated and ill – maintained roads of East Central State, Zik reminded Asika. Three years later, the throne came crashing as the ‘I Colonel Joseph Nanven Garba’ revolt rumbled through our radio sets. There will be a day of reckoning for the thieving communication firms.