Over the years most MTN subscribers have been wondering why
they are still on Ghana’s MOST
TROUBLESOME NETWORK despite the list of worries they have been going
through from expensive call rates, termination rates, poor network quality to
unfavorable promotions and on it goes.
Just for the fact that MTN
has the largest subscribtion in the country, having a speculated 10.2million customers to cheat, lie and steal from every now and
then, they feel it’s enough to keep them up and running.
MTN has over the years been under fire in some countries
like South Africa (SA) and Iran forcing them to change their call charges
giving the customers good value for their money. So the question we ask
ourselves is why cant this happen in Ghana. In SA the Termination rate thus the
off-net call charge from MTN to VODACOM was at R1.25 thus a whooping 29pesewas
which was very expensive and upon several complains and appeals to the telecom
commission by way of law suits reduced to R0.70 thus 16pesewas which is set to
reduce further to R0.44 thus 10p in the next few months. Note: these are call charges from MTN to other networks in South Africa.
IN Ghana, it looks very difficult for MTN customers to know
how much they are charged per min for each call they make due the complicated
nature of MTN call plans.MTN launched the MTN zone in June 2008 and promised
customers call charges as low as 1.5pesewas on all MTN to MTN calls. Is this really true? The MTN zone now
looks to be fixed at 9pesewas per min everywhere you go and so that’s the MTN
call charge for on-net calls, the most
expensive charges in the country now. For the termination rate thus MTN to
other networks no one knows because they never talk about it. Not in their TV
commercials or even on their official website. Oops! Guess you haven’t
checked!
MTN recently
introduced the Free beyond 3 offer promising customers no extra charge after
paying for the first 3 minutes and can talk as long as you can but now looks
like a means of manipulating customers and cheating them of their valued money. WHY?
1. 1. When subscribed to this call plan, you make a
call and just after five minutes you are automatically hanged up just to
restart your call again and then have to pay for another first 3 minutes only
to talk not more than 5 minutes again. This is simply cheating.
2. 2. Customers subscribed to this call plan are been
charged more than usual for the first 3 minutes and the MTN zone do not apply to this calls as well.
3. 3. Customers on this plan no longer enjoy reduced Night calls but pay for the normal
daylight expensive charges during the night whiles other network users enjoy off-peak charges and is even free for some networks like Expresso.
On promotions and offers, MTN stands as the worst amongst
all the Telco providers in the country. Tigo
at a point was offering customers triple the amount of credit you buy and Vodafone on the double your credit
promotion MTN only give as low as 0.8% back on every GHC1 worth of credit you
use which for me is simply unattractive.
I tried comparing MTN charges to that of the three other
Telco providers and I really felt the time to keep MTN under intense pressure
was now or never.
MTN TO AIRTEL:
Airtel has the cheapest termination rate thus off-net call charges of 8pesewas
per min in the country now, which is twice as MTN charges at 16pesewas per
minute and so one would have realized that making a call from MTN to AIRTEL
seems very difficult and comes along with network difficulties. WHY?
CEO of MTN Mr. Michael lkpoki recently announced that MTN
now pays more on “MTR” Mobile Termination Rate to other networks than they gain
from them. And so the only reason for most Termination calls (calls from MTN to
other networks) not easily reachable is a simple fact, just a means to curb the
situation of paying more to these other Telco providers. So is this Marketing
Strategy really fair enough for the innocent Ghanaian Mobile user.
MTN TO VODAFONE: Vodafone recently launched the “138”
promotion which is set to give its customers good value for their money. The
promotion gives customers as low as 11pesewas for off-net calls and 9pesewas
for on-net calls with customers having to pay only 3pesewas for on-net calls
from 9pm to 11pm and 5am to 7am everyday and all day on weekends. Vodafone also
has other call plans like the 5050 which allows customers free on-net calls for
seven days for only GHC2.49. So cant the network with the most customers in the
country do same.
MTN TO TIGO: CEO
of TIGO Carlos Caceres recently announced that Tigo felt the many call plans
from mobile networks in Ghana was complicated to the many Ghanaians and so to
make it so simple for their customers, Tigo has introduced a new flat call
charges which will surpass all other Tigo call plans. The new plan would charge
users the lowest rate on on-net calls in the country at just 4pesewas per min
and 9pesewas on off-net calls.
And so comparing these call plans to that of MTN, I ask
myself why they have 10.2million
customers. Do Ghanaians feel committed in some way to MTN or what? For me it’s
simply a mystery.
MTN’s social responsibility despite having the most
subscribers hasn’t been the greatest compared to that of AIRTEL and VODAFONE,
with Airtel’s touching lives and Vodafone’s Health line, livelihoods have been
changed across the country. We can give credit to MTN for the Maternity block
at KORLE-BU but is it really enough.MTN built a speculated GHC42, 000 ICT
center across the country and the question is are they really in use. When
travelling from Kumasi to Bibiani one will find about two of these centers
which have never opened since it was built almost some two years ago.
We have over the years been subject to MTN’s Cheats and
Lies, we always here complains from almost every user we meet either from poor
network quality to exorbitant charges but the time to act for a change should
be now.
Ghanaians are family oriented and always want to stay in
touch with family and friends through phone calls and so paying so much to keep
in touch turns to be a burden on the average Ghanaian.
U can only do one thing to support this initiative, like
this article and share with friend to increase the circulation and be part of
this change.MTN do not deserve the kind of support and respect given them by the majority Ghanaians. join this blog now and be part of the change!
