MTN Nigeria explains poor service, blames fibre cuts, vandalism, and rising data demand
By Aboki Forex —
MTN Nigeria has blamed recent network disruptions on a mix of technical, environmental, and infrastructure problems. The company says poor service is not intentional and that it continues to invest in upgrades.
Fibre cuts and vandalism are major issues
Tobe Okigbo, Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer, spoke during an “Ask Me Anything” session in Lagos. He said frequent fibre cuts and vandalism hurt service quality across the country. A cut in one state can affect connectivity in another state. The company often has to replace entire cables, which is costly and time consuming.
Okigbo also cited high rental costs for base station sites and disputes with landlords as ongoing challenges. He described the situation as a constant battle, with quality going up and down between investments.
More users, more congestion
Okigbo explained that network congestion happens when too many people use the network at the same time. Data usage is rising fast, and the infrastructure is under pressure. Even recent tariff increases have not immediately fixed the problem.
“There is nobody that has base stations on the shelf. If you order from the manufacturer, it takes time to come in, go through customs, and then you find the site where you will deploy it,” he said.
Bad service costs the company money
Okigbo stressed that MTN does not benefit from poor network quality. He said the company loses money whether the network is idle or performing badly. “If the network is up and radiating and nobody is using it, we are losing money. If the quality is bad, we are losing money. So it’s to our benefit for the quality to be good,” he said.
Compensation coming for affected subscribers
Earlier, MTN announced plans to compensate subscribers with airtime credits, following a directive from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The NCC said affected customers will receive the compensation, though the company has not given a start date.