GSM Network Providers And Deceitful Promotions

Historically, during the early 1980s, analog cellular telephone systems were experiencing rapid growth in Europe particularly in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom including France and Germany. Each country developed its own system which was incompatible with everyone else’s in equipment and operation.

This situation was undesirable because not only was the mobile equipment limited to operation within national boundaries which in a unified Europe were increasingly unimportant but there was also a very limited market for each type of equipment and so economics of scale and the subsequent savings could not be realised.

The Europeans realised this early on, and in 1982 the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPTI) formed a study group called the “Groupe Special Mobile” (GSM) to study and develop a Pan-European public land mobile system. Pan-European means European-wide.

The proposed system had to meet certain criteria. These are good subjective speech quality, low terminal and service cost, support for international roaming, ability to support hand-held terminals, support for range of new services and facilities, spectral efficiency and compatibility.

In 1989, GSM responsibility was transferred to the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) and commercial service was started in mid 1991 and by 1993, there were 36 GSM networks in 22 countries around the world.

By the beginning of 1994, there were (One point three) 1.3 million subscribers worldwide which had grown to more than 55 (fifty-five) million subscribers by October, 1997, with North America making a delayed entry into the GSM field with a derivative of GSM called PCS 1900. GSM systems exist on every continent and the acronym GSM now aptly stands for “GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS”.

According to the GSM Association as of 2002, current GSM statistics revealed that 172 countries operated GSM system since October, 2001 with a total of 590.3 million subscribers in September, 2001.

By the end of July 2001, world subscribers growth was 800.4 million while SMS messages sent out per month was put at 23 billion at the end of September, 2001.

It was also gathered that GSM Network Service Providers were plain and friendly while dealing with their subscribers without unpleasant situations in their transactions in other countries of the world. In Nigeria, that GSM Network Providers can function dates back to early 200 1, the first tenure of former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo. During that period, President Olusegun Obasanjo approved the communications liberalisation policy which gave rise to the operations of the GSM network in the country.

For the communication liberalisation policy to function effectively, it  became imperative that the National Communications Commission (NCC) regulates, controls and oversees to such formations or institutions to avoid fraud or malpractice that may arise from their operations

There are various GSM Network Providers In Nigeria such as MTN, GLO, ZAIN, ETISALAT, STARCOMS, etc.

Before this time, its activities or services have been cordial, friendly and encouraging but in recent times the reverse has been the problems between the subscribers and service providers in areas of poor services and deceitful (promos) promotions.

One has watched with keen interest the probable emerging fraud involved in the so-called various promotions by GSM network providers, MTN, Glo, Zain, Etisalat, Starcoms etc. One would not know if the National Communications Commission (NCC) that supposed to be watching over those institutions is living up to its billing. Some people are suspecting National Communications Commission connivance with the network providers (operators).

It is believed that proper check of various exercises involving the network providers would reveal some ripping-off of other subscribers. There was the recent past promotions by Etisalat which saw a student of the University of Jos win US1 million among other winners. This was televised nationwide and could be said to be transparent.

Other network providers have had one promotion or the other in the past.

Now, the MTN is on with a promotion which says that one stands the chance of wining N20,000.00 (twenty thousand naira) every hour or N20 million (twenty million naira everyday or NIO million every month.

The conditions of the promotions look simple but underneath it could be seen as some atom of fraud. The promotion would ask you to “Go” to 2010 and each text costs N100.00 (one hundred naira) and all they do is to increase what they call “points” for you, luring you to carry on with spending N100.00 each time for text that ordinarily would not cost more than N15.00. At the end one might spend N100.00 without a win. It is high time the network providers become genuine and straightforward with their promotions.

They should look more transparent and rewarding to their longstanding customers. They should work out a way at arriving at such that it looks more sincere and equitable. If they are short of ideas, they can send to people e-mails to oblige them with good suggestions.

On the part of the National Communications Commission (NCC) still, they too should wake up to their responsibility and check the excesses of the network providers; where necessary they can deny them of their licenses or deregister them to serve as deterrent measure in future occurrences.

The presidency and even the National Assembly, that, is, the law-makers should as a matter of importance and urgency wade into this issue with a view to arresting this ugly phenomenon.

By so doing, the deceitful promos and acts of the network providers to their subscribers would be put to an end.

Awoji wrote from Port Harcourt.

Umegbewe Awoji