MTN’S DOUBLE STANDARDS

…Spends $1 Billion on Nigeria’s Network Problem But Ignores Ghana’s Complaints

By Newman Dotse

Africa’s largest mobile-phone operator, MTN, will spend more than $1 billion this year to improve its network in Nigeria after the nation’s phone regulator last year demanded better service, but has completely ignored similar complaints and warnings of Ghanaians.

While Ghanaians struggle to get better service from mobile telephony companies operating in the Country without success, the largest operator, MTN deemed it fit to set aside over $1 billion to improve its network in Nigeria because, the management considers Ghana’s market base as a small one, compared to Nigeria’s market and that Ghanaians only make noise but can never bite.

“The $1 billion investment will relieve congestion and improve the quality of the network,” Akinwale Goodluck, a spokesman for MTN Nigeria, stated last week. The funds will be directed towards second and third generation technologies, MTN’s core network, and power generators to run transmission stations, he said.

The Citizen Newspaper has gathered that last year, Nigeria’s National Communications Commission told mobile phone companies MTN, Globacom Ltd. and Bharti Airtel Ltd. (BHARTI)’s Nigerian unit to improve mobile network services or they would be stopped from signing up new customers.

MTN, which operates in 20 other countries in Africa and the Middle East, according to the Johannesburg based company’s website, spent $1 billion on its Nigerian network in 2011 and its investments will help achieve the commission’s goal, Goodluck said.

After spending such a huge amount of money last year to improve network service in Nigeria, the company has again set aside similar amount of money for the same exercise this year in a bid to make certain that Nigerians enjoy better service while ignoring similar calls from Ghanaians. MTN has completely taken Ghanaians for granted, some subscribers have said. Whatever is good for Nigeria is good for Ghana too. MTN cannot ignore Ghana on the grounds that its customer base in Nigeria is greater than Ghana, some Ghanaians insist.

MTN Nigeria is the biggest phone operator in Africa’s most populous country. The company had more than 40 million users on its mobile network in June 2011, according to Nigeria’s National Communications Commission. Globacom ranked second with more than 19 million and Bharti Airtel was third with about 16 million.

Even though Ghana’s market is not as big as Nigeria’s market, it is believed the behavior of MTN shows clearly that mobile telephony companies in Ghana can actually give Ghanaians the best of service but intentionally refuse to do so because National Communication Authority (NCA) is not pushing hard enough. The time has come for the NCA to be hard on these companies because Ghanaians also deserve better service.

Source: The Citizen Newspaper (+233 27 731 4655) thecitizen.news@yahoo.com / www.thecitizenghana.com