It has been a frustrating 24 hours for Nigerians in major cities in most states in the northern region over the inability to gain access to the internet as all the major telecom service providers have shutdown.
According to findings made by Ripples Nigeria, all the major network platforms have been experiencing partial or total breakdown since Wednesday afternoon with providers not coming out with any explanation as to the cause of the epileptic situation or even providing any update as to when they will be telecoms services would be restored fully.
In Jos, the Plateau State capital, consumers have lamented the incessant breakdown of the service providers especially MTN which seems to be the major source of internet usage as both Airtel and Glo are almost non existent.
But in the past few weeks, the MTN network has been offering an on and off service which has affected a lot of businesses in the city, leading to loss of income for business owners.
Small scale businesses are mostly affected as their trade have been brought to their knees due to the unstable network despite their recent increase in tarrifs.
A cross section of business owners have complained bitterly over the unpalatable situation they have been made to undergo in the hands of the service providers despite coughing out huge sums of money to pay for subscription.
A POS operator who spoke to our correspondent lamented that he has lost thousands of naira since the network shutdown and with no hope of an improvement, may still incur more losses.
“I don’t know what is going on with these network providers. Since last week, their services have been epileptic though we still managed to pull through with it.
“But since yesterday (Wednesday), there has been a total shutdown and it is affecting our businesses. Personally, I have lost thousands of naira between then and today and I can tell you that the same applies to our other colleagues.
“The annoying part is that they have not even deemed it fit to tell us what is happening or when they hope to remedy the situation,” he said.
Ripples Nigeria findings have also revealed that the network shutdown is not limited to Jos alone as consumers in most parts of the North are also experiencing the same thing though with varying degree of severity.
In places like Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba, Adamawa, Borno, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna and parts of Abuja, consumers are also lamenting the epileptic network services they have been subjected. They have called on regulatory authorities to take a closer look at the providers with a view to bringing the erring ones to book.
However, an MTN engineer who spoke with Ripples Nigeria on the condition of anonymity, gave varying reasons for the network fluctuations being experienced by customers.
According to the engineer, investigations carried out by the company has revealed that there was a possible disruption on its underwater fiber and assured that the company’s FME and power team were working hard to restore the cut fiber.
Apart from the cut fiber, the situation in Jos as well as other parts of northern Nigeria has to do with the terrain.
In the case of Jos, common network issues often includes poor signal strength, frequent call drops, slow internet speeds, and network congestion which also affect other network providers,” he said.
“You will notice that most of these disruptions occur in highly concentrated areas due to challenges with network infrastructure and terrain.
“Highly populated city centers often experience network congestion, causing slower speeds during peak hours.
“The hilly terrain around Jos also hinders signal propagation, leading to weaker network coverage in outlying areas,” he added.
