9Mobile: Subscribers lament network failure, business losses

Telecoms subscribers on the 9mobile network have said they have been expressing poor service delivery by 9Mobile telecommunications, formerly, Etisalat.

The telecoms network has been unable to resolve issues causing very little or no coverage in most parts of Lagos since last Thursday, August 17, 2017.

Daily Times gathered from some subscribers at Gbagada area office of 9mobile that the telco completely ruined their day because they could not make calls or use data for their businesses.

Alhaji Ali Umar,a customer, told Daily Times that he thought his phone was faulty until he got to Gbagada area office of 9mobile and learnt that it was a technical fault which is being fixed by their engineers for more than three days to no avail.

Mrs. Stella Dickson. another subscriber. noted that the poor network service in the past few days had in some ways. affected the progress in her business; as her customers complained of not being able to reach her and vice verse.

She said,“My phone is essentially my business channel to reach my customers. I make all my transactions using my mobile banking application, but I haven’t been able to do all that via 9mobile last week; and my customers have been unable to reach me on that line. I had to port to my other network provider to make calls.”

Experts in the telecoms industry are of the view that this kind of failure in network should be handled critically, as 9mobile may lose more subscribers than it did when the company failed to meet its loan obligations and was made to restructure management team and change its brand name from Etisalat to 9mobile.

Statistics from the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), after the shakeups from bank loan debts, indicated that 9mobile currently has just over 18 million subscribers, down from its over 21 million subscribers in 2016.

Analysts opined that the recent network problems may scare investors; and 9mobile may not survive in Nigeria’s telecoms’ competitive market that is expanding its network for both calls and data.

All effort made to speak with 9mobile has not yielded any result, but a source close to the telco, who crave anonymity, hinted Daily Times that the technical team of 9mobile are still battling to solve the network problem around some areas in Lagos.

Tony Nwakaegho, Lagos