Regional News of Thursday, 22 April 2010

Source: Agbenyo John Stephen

Tamale Vodafone Broadband Users Assosiation Communique

Communiqué Issued by the Vodafone Broadband Users Association of Tamale

21st April, 2010, Catholic Guest House, Tamale



For some time now, we the Vodafone broadband users in and around Tamale have been

receiving very poor services from the company that we buy Internet from.



On various occasions, as individuals, we have visited the premises of the Vodafone

Offices in Tamale and have met different officers. Reasons for the poor and of

abysmal quality of services received have been as varying as the number of officers

we meet. Thus, on the 9th of March, 2010, we collectively visited the Tamale Offices

with an official complaint. Ever since, we have not received any response to that

effect neither have we noticed any improvement in the quality of the services

provided. This is despite some of us opting to pay for the Internet Bandwidth

packages as recommended by Vodafone.



Key complaints



Very Poor or Absence of Internet Services and Vodafone’s Own Fast Internet Cafe

Since the latter parts of November 2009, we have collectively received on average,

one day of Internet service out of every three days. And even when the Internet is

available, it is so poor no serious work can be done online. This is in view of the

fact that, the monthly subscription fee for equivalent service has gone up during

the above mentioned period. Ironically, the Internet Service picks up to very good

speeds late in the night.

Given the time since we begun to receive poor Internet services and time of the day

when the Internet seems better, we suspect a correlation in poor Internet Service to

us with the working hours of the Internet Cafe that Vodafone has set up in its

premises.



It is actually surprising that Vodafone, an Internet service provider partly

sponsored by public funds is allowed to compete with small entrepreneurs by setting

up its own Internet cafe and providing it with very good bandwidth. Is this not a

conflict of interest? This has convinced us that Vodafone has the capacity to

deliver but is either unwilling, inefficient or out to collapse Small and Medium

scale Enterprises.

Please read full text attached.





"The future belongs to the countries whose people make the most productive use of

information,knowledge and technology - these are now the key factors for economic

success,not natural resources"



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AGBENYO JOHN STEPHEN

TAMALE, GHANA

Website: www.savsign.org

skype: agbedela

CELL: +233 (0) 244 421 532

office: +233 (0)71 25174

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