September 19th GSM Boycott In Nigeria - Two Years After. Any Changes? (Part Two)
by David Ajao2005-10-02 00:00:00 | Viewed 1364 times
The second part of this articles outlines the concerns brought forward by the two organizations namely Consumer Rights Project (an NGO) and the National Association of Telecommunication Subscribers (NATSCOM), and attempts to compare what is available in Nigeria today, to see if there has been any change since the September 19th boycott by GSM network subscribers in Nigeria.
One very important factor one must point out is the entry of Glo Mobile (the GSM network of the Second National Operator, Globacom). Glo Mobile was very promising from the very first day it was launched. Glo launched a 2.5G network and came with some many value added services as had never been seen before in Nigeria. It was Nigeria’s first GPRS-enabled network. The value added services included: Text Messaging, Magic Plus*, Txt2Email / Email2Txt, glo mms, glo mobile internet, Voice Mail Service, Calling Line Identification Presentation (CLIP), Call Waiting, Call Hold, Call Forwarding. Others include: Choice between Per-Second-Billing & Per-Minute-Billing, Prepaid Premium (a package that combines the flexibility and control of a prepaid package, with the low airtime tariff usually associated with a contract package), TalkNow (an easy installment plan for acquiring a Prepaid Classic line), Friends & Family, as well as low recharge card denominations.
Armed with such a large itinery of value added services and lower entry costs, Glo Mobile was poised to alter the GSM arena in Nigeria, for good.
It is also instructive to note that Econet Wireless has been re-branded to Vmobile Nigeria. From this point, “Vmobile” would be used instead of “Econet”.
Points raised by CRP and NATSCOM, and the conditions today in Nigeria.
1. Reduce their tariffs drastically to 20 Naira
Today, one cannot miss the many banners that are displayed on the streets in the major cities and towns in Nigeria, many of them reading: “GSM Calls – N15” These are commercial phone operators, enabling any one to make phone calls to any of the GSM networks. Rates vary from 10 Naira to 20 Naira.
Ever since Glo Mobile unveiled its ProfitMax offering, that allowed the commercial phone operators to make calls at very low rates, other operators gave drastically lowered the charges for the similar products they have.
Today, tariffs for individual subscribers are still on the high side, and start from 70 kobo/sec and N35/min. (glo mobile)
2. Abrogate the per-minute billing charges
All the GSM networks have since been offering Per-Second-Billing as an alternative for their subscribers, since the entry of Glo Mobile, which came with PSB from day one.
Hitherto, one of the incumbent GSM cellcos had projected that Per-Second-Billing could only be possible in 2007!
3. Abrogate the unsolicited voicemail charges
Whilst Mtel and Vmobile Nigeria do not charge their subscribers to access their voice mail box, information about MTN and Glo mobile is not readily available. (I’d update this part if I get this information)
4. Improve on their networks to ease voice clarity and enhance more efficiency in their services generally
Efforts have been made across board, especially by MTN and Vmobile, to improve their service quality, significantly, with their network expansion, and increasing traffic capacity on their networks. Notable amongst this is MTN’s YelloBahn and Vmobile’s ROSE (Rolling Out Service Everywhere).
Despite this above stated fact, the service quality generally, amongst all the GSM networks still leaves much to be desired. It can be quite hectic to terminate calls on other networks from one’s home network. There is still room for improvement. It is also important to know that there are still more people waiting to join the GSM train than those who are already on. One then wonders how the networks could handle such traffic.
Summarily, much progress has been made since the 19 Sept 2003 GSM boycott, thanks to entry of Glo mobile that effected a paradigm shift, there is still much to be done on service quality and tariffs.
Though the GSM operators ‘defend’ their high tariffs with the following facts: Multiple taxation by all the tiers of government, high import duties, erratic power supply causing damage of equipment, cost of generating their own power supply, one can only hope that tariffs would go down even further with the entry of more subscribers onto the networks.
Happy Independence Anniversary, Nigeria.
David Ajao, a web developer with Web4Africa writes from Accra, Ghana.
See also: September 19th GSM Boycott in Nigeria - Two Years After. Any Changes? (Part One)
NOTE -
* Glo mobile’s Magic Plus provides subscribers access to a bouquet of innovative services that offers information, commerce, and entertainment (ICE) content directly to their handsets at the touch of a button. It is a simple, quick and easy to use with no need for memorizing keywords or numbers.
- Information – Flight Schedule, Horoscope, Weather, Weekend Hotspots
- News – Political, Business, Sports
- Football – Nigerian League, UK Premiership, UEFA, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Dutch League
- Entertainment – Ringtones, Logos, Jokes, Music Chart
- Business Services – Dutch Auction, Currency
|
 |
|
|
 |
