It was Valentine’s day yesterday, and many lovers had their thoughts running wild because MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, a major telecom services provider, had a nationwide service outage.
Calls could not go through, internet service was erratic, and relationships hung in the balance. Many Nigerian lovers must have been preparing piles of evidence before the telecoms provider tweeted about the occurrence of a technical difficulty that would be fixed soon.
However, the issue persisted for several hours, angering many Nigerians, especially because it was on a significant day like Valentine’s Day.
As many of the company’s customers could not place or receive calls due to the outage and using data was also unavailable for several hours, many last-minute gifts could not be purchased, dinner reservations were a chore, and one can only imagine the experience of dispatch riders in megacities like Lagos.
After the long hours of many MTN customers walking in the shadows, the telecom company finally resolved the network’s issue and restored the service. It also made a public apology tweet in the evening.
“Today, of all days, you couldn’t count on us to keep you seamlessly connected with the people, places, businesses, and things that matter to you. Words cannot express how sorry we are sorry for the disruption we caused. The issue has been resolved and services restored. You matter to us and we will never stop showing you how much.”
The last time the telecom company experienced a nationwide service outage was in October 2021, followed by an apology. Like the most recent, the disruption affected calls and data services and lasted many hours.
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Comments from MTN active subscribers
MTN is the largest telecom operator in Nigeria, with over 89 million active subscriptions. There were options for other users who use to other telecom operating services. However, for many of the telecom’s active subscribers, this impromptu service outage caused lots of damage to their business and personal lives.
Others asked for compensation for the damages, losses, and pain caused by the service outage.
Read Also: MTN sets new Nigerian record after posting over N2 trillion in revenue
MTN leading the telecom game in Nigeria
In 2019, MTN became Nigeria’s largest mobile telecom operator, with 38% of the market share. Globacom and Airtel follow with 27 and 26 per cent of the share, respectively, according to Statista.
In September 2022, MTN launched the Fifth-Generation (5G) network in Nigeria and has rolled out 588 sites across leading cities. This made it the first mobile network operator to launch a 5G network in Nigeria.
According to the NCC, over 40% of active subscribers in the country use MTN, and the wide-scale service disruption affected many people across the country. We can only hope that no permanent damages were made to the lives and businesses of these people.
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