Nigerians bemoan high MTN data rates, charges

Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja

Some MTN network subscribers have expressed concern over the depletion of their data, in addition to the rising costs of the data bundle.

The customers who expressed their woes during an interview with The Daily Times said that the depletion is causing a lot of damages to their work and businesses, leading some to even dump the network.

Mrs. Henrieta Adakole, a blogger, said that she was surprised that a 2-gigabyte data bundle recharge which normally lasted for a month was used up within two days.

“I only use the data for working. I normally open a portal to copy a document, shut it off and open again to post, only to get an alert within two days that the data had finished.

“This has happened on two occasions and the only solution left was to drop the network, since I am losing time and money,’’ she said.

Another subscriber in Lugbe, a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory, said: “The solution can only be to stop patronising them. They have done this before and people moved to other networks.

They seem to forget so soon that their monopoly was broken because of their greed. Glo came with per second billing. The last time they did this I bought an Airtel sim card, now this.

“The only challenge is that people that use them for browsing might find it difficult to use other networks because of bonuses. They are probably doing this to get back at government for the fine they are currently paying.

“What they fail to realise is that it’s the masses that suffer. The NCC cannot say they are not aware of this. MTN is getting too comfortable, we should continue to battle with them till they stop taking us for granted”.

A web designer, Mr. Emeka Nwalata said that the recent development in MTN data service was not good enough. He alleged that it was as though the network was using subscribers’ subscription to pay off the debt it owes the banks.

“I was really enjoying MTN services when they came up, but recently, since its debt issue, the network has been misbehaving, it is no longer reliable,’’ he said.

Another subscriber, Mr. Biola Fagbemi, said that he was having the best data experience with MTN until recently when the services became unappealing.

He called on MTN to revisit the issue before it gets out of hand, adding that its services were nothing to write home about now.

On his part, Jibril Usman, a wholesaler in Wuse Market, proffering a solution said: “The solution might be for the wholesalers to stop buying their cards. Retailers are not united enough, if one doesn’t sell, another would sell.

“By the time three to five wholesalers refuse to pick up the cards for a week, with the population in Abuja, I believe MTN will get the message. They should know that they are not the only network available us”, he added.

Another web developer, Mr. Leo Osundo, said that MTN was really fast when he started using it and suddenly it started being slow.

“I had to configure three apps to work on the data, but still, it keeps getting worse,’’ he said.