Query: MTN denies negligence, says ‘we notified NCC’

Following the query by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on May 3, 2012, to MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, its management has expressed surprise, even as it denied negligence of due process.

A press statement made available to ITRealms Online, quoted the General Manager, Corporate Affairs, MTN Nigeria, Mrs. Funmilayo Omogbenigun as saying they were taken aback by NCC response as a letter clarifying the disruption and efforts made to rectify same have been since dispatched to NCC barely 24 hours before the query.

According to her, the incident under reference was a service disruption that some MTN customers experienced on May 1, 2012.

This, she attributed to “a power related incident at our Ikoyi switch late on May 1,” adding that it was quickly rectified but MTN further realized that all the affected customers would not feel the full impact of the restoration for a few hours.

“Some customers continued to experience difficulty with calling and texting. These issues were largely localized to parts of Lagos,” she noted.

The Corporate Affairs boss maintained that a letter was sent out to NCC on May 2, 2012 to intimate the Commission of what happened and efforts at normalizing the service, hence they were surprised that a query was sent on the May 3, 2012.

Affected customers, she said, were also informed by Short Messaging Service (SMS), Twitter and Facebook as well as radio announcements to name a few.

“We offered our apologies,” she declared, stressing that by the afternoon of May 2, service had been fully restored.

“Indeed, we sent additional SMS to our customers confirming this,” she asserted.

On the Quality of Service (QoS) across the country, MTN Nigeria described it as “an industry wide challenge,” which is caused by a combination of factors related to demand still outstripping supply in terms of infrastructure and local environmental challenges.

The operator insisted that till date, no network in Nigeria has invested more in infrastructure than MTN. 

“This year alone, MTN is investing $1.3 billion, about N204,372,996,826 trillion, in the network with a view to upgrading and increasing its capacity,” part of the press statement read.

Further, MTN Nigeria says it is surprised by threats from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to impose sanctions on the group for poor service to subscribers, more so in looking at the aforementioned indexes.

Remmy Nweke
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