mobile telephone - network disturbances worsen

Making calls, sending messages, transferring airtime... have become veritable headaches.

Mobile telephone users in the country have for the past days been at a loss with the not-so-good service delivery by the different operators which defeat the purpose of making calls or carrying out other operations at will. Successfully making or receiving a call or effectively carrying out airtime transfer has been difficult and even impossible at times.

"The number you're trying to call is not available," "no network," "message not sent," "save to drafts" and messages like, "the number is now available," "you have a missed call," are some of the embarrassing but inevitable feedbacks customers are having. "You dial a number, it rings once or twice and suddenly you're told that the number you are trying to call is not available, someone rings you and all attempts to call him are futile or you simply receive a message, "network failure," many telephone users we met in Yaounde last weekend testified.

"It is not a new problem but the fact that the network disturbances persist without any signs of imminent solutions is what aches most," a user, Ngong Joseph said. Even when one succeeds in having his caller, the exchanges are not always the best. Either there are intermittent cuts or one barely hears what the other is saying.

The situation worsened Saturday and Sunday with the MTN KDO bonus where FCFA 3,500 worth airtime was loaded for a FCFA 500 transfer as so many people flooded the network to consume the airtime before its expiry at midnight. Users and business people in mobile telephone (call box operators) alike say the network disturbances are devastating. "At times you realise that the airtime you had is finished even when you have not made any successful call," a caller said. "Our business consists in making calls and selling airtime. When you cannot effectively do one of the two, you can just imagine what we take home at the end of the day. At times you insist several times on transferring airtime which may end up not going or going more than once. There are God-fearing people who would send you back the excesses but a majority of them would leap for joy when it comes to them. On a bad day, you can lose much money to this and this has crippled so many strugglers in the business," Confidence Ngek, a call box operator at the Biyem-Assi told this reporter. The different mobile telephone operators have not yet given any explanation to the network malaise.