Mobile Telephone - Network Disturbances Persist

Successfully making a call or sending a message through the networks of the two mobile telephone companies Cameroon boasts of is increasingly becoming as difficult as getting dog's tears. "The number you're trying to call is not available for the moment, try it next time,", "the telephone number you're calling is incorrect" or "the telephone of the subscriber you are trying to reach is off," are some of the frequent but unpleasant feedbacks helpless subscribers get from the operators when they want to make calls.

"Sometimes even when you try a call and it fails and a message comes to you later to say that the number you were trying to reach is now available, the same number still hardly goes through," a subscriber, Michael Kembung, decried. Most often, one would have attributed the call failure to absence of network. But Michael, like other subscribers, holds that it is not uncommon to dial the number of a subscriber who is besides you and you are either told that the number is not available or the phone is off.

The same holds for messages. "Message not sent, or failure delivery, try again," or "safe to drafts" are characteristic of the operators these days. "What is even disturbing is that a message can take days to go through. In most of these cases, airtime is sliced from the poor subscriber who then doubly losses in messages not going through or on time and forfeiting money in the failed or belated adventure," another subscriber who opted for anonymity said.

Customers are certainly quite aware of the fact that Cameroon currently runs a 2G technology telecommunication system while waiting for the third operator that is promising to begin 3G technologies. But what baffles them most is that at the time they are battling to make calls and send messages, sometimes unsuccessfully and without any explanation or compensation from the operators, the operators frequently flood their phones with messages advertising one lucky game or the other and slicing communication credit in due course. "Send 'XXX' to 931 and win 1 motorcycle everyday", "Bravo! XXX vient de te sélectionner pour gagner 2.000.000 FCFA. Fait vite ! Confirme ta participation en envoyant Ok au 987, » meaning (Congrats. You've been short-listed to win FCFA 2 million. Hurry up! Confirm your participation by sending a text message, OK to 987), "Change your story with an SMS. Win by draw 1 million frs per day, 10 million frs per month and 60 million frs jackpot. Just send go to 922 (200 frs per sms)," are among some spicy messages that rather irk the already embittered customers. "While our calls and messages are hard to go through, those of the operators keep flooding our phones igniting us into gambling which is at best beneficial only to the subscriber. Why can't customers of these telephone operators be kings as it is often said," a subscriber retorted.