The Networks Go Awry Again
by Okoh Aihe2006-01-12 00:00:00 | Viewed 2957 times
The first time I saw a GSM Switching Centre, as a Communications reporter, I tried for my mind not to be blown but carefully followed all the explanations concerning technical possibilities and operations of the centre.
The centre had an observatory with a video wall running from one end of the expansive hall to another. On the wall were some drawings and specks of lights representing the base stations of the mobile operator in the whole of that country. And officials were saying: "here are the ones that are live and on top there, there is an ice cap on that mountain, which makes it impossible for us to get to the top of the mountain and fix the base station. But what that means is that we have to migrate communications from that particular station to the one that is functioning so that the people there don't face any little interruption in service provisionâ-oe."
In the same way such observatory also enables the operators to plan for special occasions, events and celebrations when traffic is expected to be heavy and plan for ways to split the volume among various base stations so that congestion does not occur. This story is of course in other lands.
But in Nigeria where the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, and the operators are engaging each other over quality of service, the operators don't seem to know how to get out of it and each passing day introduces a new face to the problem.
For instance the Christmas celebrations came with a different face of the problems and the Moslem activities commencing tomorrow will introduce yet another streak to that problem. Our GSM operators always don't seem to be ready. This season people have lost a lot of money without realising it but at least one person kept track and he wrote this letter.
"Happy New Year to you and your family and may 2006 be the best you have ever experienced in God's name. Amen. I sent you an MTN text message four days ago, but it is still showing in my phone as sending in progress. Even my text reply to your Editor-in-chief a day before is still showing the same thing. I have about forty messages still showing "Sending in Progress" in my MTN phone. The irony of it all is that as soon as you sent the message, you got charged for the text message. Because of congestion the text messages are not going and I can assure you that in few days MTN will purge the pending text messages, even though they have charged for them."
Other operators are not recording better performances. For instance on the Vmobile network, I tried to send some texts on Christmas day. Four did not go and continued to remain on the processing mode. But one of the persons the message was intended for called from Abuja to inform that he had received the message more than ten times. Others had equally gone like that and yet they remained unsent or failed messages or sending on my phone.
Glo has its own peculiar problem. When you call a Glo number, it will hardly ring but if you stay long enough, somebody is bound to pick the phone. The risk is that the minutes could just begin to tick away on your phone and you do not even know.
Before Christmas when I sent an Mtel worker a text and the message went, the recipient, was actually excited that he got the message and one would never understand that.
The problem is with text messages as it is with voice calls. Today, you cannot make a success of a call with just one dial. At least you must try two times before you achieve a successful call.
After four years of mobile operations, the situation remains inexplicable that operators are still unable to carry out certain basic operations without putting the subscribers at the short end of the stick.
But quite a few bizarre things are happening in the mobile sector. Nearly all the operators are engaged in some mouth-watering promotions, cashing in on the want of the people to stimulate them with some eye-popping prizes. Vmobile is giving out dollars as star prize in a mouth watering promo. But last week some of the winners of T-Shirts whose prizes were expected to be converted to N600 airtime complained that they were not credited many days after Vmobile said so. Glo is giving out state-of-the-art houses and MTN is giving out Kia cars. The list is endless.
Besides, SIM cards are nearly all free on the networks. The result is that people have more access and opportunities to make calls and participate in these promotions and then stretch the facilities of the networks that are inadequate.
The problem of quality has remained a running battle between operators and the regulator. Each time this happens, the subscribers remain the grass, which suffers for the protracted fight. But I think in the New Year, the NCC should take a drastic step: forbid operators from giving free SIMS and doing any promo to attract people to their networks since they don't have the capacity to accommodate the volume of traffic they generate in the process.
|
 |
|
|
 |
