Mobile Telephone Network Services in Need of Improvement

Frequent network disturbances within the private mobile telephone sector in the country may be sufficiently said to be a veritable headache. Hardly would a week pass by without sighs from consumers in response to poor services.

This assessment by some trade unionists, also noted that embarrassments such as, network interruptions, numbers which just rang immediately becoming unavailable, text messages arriving several hours late and a voice which says, "You do not have enough airtime credits to make this call" just when a client has sufficiently refilled the number came in the spotlight October 16.

In response to the alleged violations, some callbox agents, subcontractors and consumers who constitute members of the Cameroon National Federation of Trade and Services Trade Unions (FESCOS-CAM) marched across sections of the city to the MTN headquarters in Akwa Tuesday. In a communiqué, signed by the trade union leader, Boris Boniface Mbah, the march was to protest violations of consumer rights, mainly through poor network services. It also imputed allegations of denial by one of the private mobile telephone companies to grant audience for dialogue towards a satisfying service.

The planned weeklong protest soon folded up. A mixed patrol of police and gendarmes who came in pickups, security wagons and small service cars swopped the demonstrators who marched to the premises of one of the companies in Akwa at about 10 a.m. Tuesday. By Thursday afternoon, the five protesters who were arrested, including its leader, Boris Boniface Mbah, and a motorbike impounded on the spot were still in custody. "It is an illegal protest," a security officer noted. Other protesters fled the premises having been chased far into the neighbourhood by the forces of law and order.

A senior staff of one of the companies who denied being mentioned by name debunked all allegations by the trade unionists and protesters. He said they are company the fact that they have moved up from two to seven million clients within a decade is remarkable and proves of service quality.