By Umaru Fofana
I want to check my email. I want to download. I want to upload my website. I want to browse. I want to carry out some research. But before I do any of those things which are a nightmare here, let me do a quick audit of myself vis-à-vis how much of my meagre income goes to telecoms. However, for the purpose of this piece I will limit my audit to my use of Airtel who operate the first GSM facility in Sierra Leone and who, despite being so terrible and frustrating, are, to my mind, simply the best in the country. Well...you then begin to get the picture as to what the National Telecommunications Communication (NATCOM) should do to reign in on these country’s mobile phone operators by taking off the kids’ gloves and dealing with these companies who are on the prowl in preying on customers.
Every month I spend between 7,000 and 10,000 units on just my Airtel Internet Modem. On the higher side that costs nearly US$ 100. This discounts the fact that I use their so-called Bundle Plan which should be cost effective, they say. This is also despite the fact that I hardly download using the Airtel modem – both because it is a rip-off and almost impossible to do – and I have to disconnect even when I blink if only to reduce the expenses.
I spend this much, again, even despite the fact that I have to piggyback on the wireless services in some of my friends’ offices. And this, despite the fact I browse on my iPhone as well, sometimes. Without those “despites” I would part with over $ 300 a month on an eclectic Internet service which takes around five minutes to take you into your email box and takes between 30 minutes and one hour to upload a single photo or audio file if you dare try to.
Now Airtel want me to part with 26,000 units a month for their so-called Unlimited Internet service on my modem. I am sure you have received that SMS text message from them a few times if you are an Airtel subscriber. A quick calculation will show that that costs Le 1,040,000 which is about US$ 240. How can any company charge that amount per month for an internet service that is down more often than it is working – and even when it is working the speed is among the slowest in the world? I will come back to that shortly.
But now a brief on voice calls I spend on average 8,000 units a month using my handset. The calls drop more than they stay on for and they are crackling more than they are smooth. Overseas calls I suffer to hear. Local calls I thunder to be heard. In the coming weeks I will return to voice calls but for this piece let me stick with the internet conundrum.
Rather unbelievably internet penetration in Sierra Leone is around TWO PERCENT the last time I checked the figures about a year ago. Ninety or more percent of that minuscule is concentrated in the capital Freetown. And it is mostly used to access users’ emails or go onto Facebook – a complete underutilisation of such a revolutionary invention. Before you blame them – of course most of them are blameable – you need to think about the bandwidth that is available in the country and how much access those who have access to internet in fact do have. Here are some harsh realities.
Alieu Sesay is a precocious reporter working for Radio Democracy. Last week he travelled to the southern town of Njala/Monkonde, the seat of Njala University (one of only three in the country) to do a week-long training being organised by the Independent Radio Network (IRN) ahead of November’s general elections. It so happened that he had an overseas assignment he was working towards. Then he received a call that he should fill out his online visa application form as a matter of urgency. He struggled, without success, to get online with his Airtel internet modem. He thought the fault lay with the situation of his hotel which is an impressive piece of investment by Njala University, something the dinosaur called Fourah Bay College that is replete with maladministration must learn from. But that is for another day.
Alieu decided to go closer to the Airtel mast which towers over the town with a huge population including thousands of university students and lecturers who should have ready access to internet not least for academic research. Alieu could not access the internet even when he sat literally under the mast. So he had to travel to Taiama, a major produce-growing area. He could not access the Internet there either.
In all this Airtel kept slashing from his credit balance whenever he tried to log on and failed. The young journalist proceeded to the country’s second city of Bo to do what seems like trying his luck with something which should actually be a human right these days. What’s more we pay for it!
In Bo, again, Alieu could not access Internet. He had to miss out on his radio training for three days just to be able to have a simple access to the internet to fill out his visa application form by travelling to the capital, Freetown. Even there it took him ages to have access to the internet to be able to fill out his form.
Adama (not her real name) is a final year student at Njala University who is busy with her dissertation work at present. She almost pulled her hair owing to frustration brought about by the erratic internet access disabling her from doing online research to unravel a key jigsaw about a type of seed she is writing about. She had had to travel to Bo the previous day to have access to the internet facility of a friend who works for an NGO there. On her return she realised that she had missed out on one crucial element in her research. She broke down and seemed to suggest that she regretted being born in this part of the world where in this day and age she cannot have ready access to a thing as basic as internet to pursue her education.
Again last Thursday I was supposed to file a report for the BBC World Service. I was also just outside Freetown and had not taken along my satellite equipment which I am sort of pretty used to moving around with because of the eclectic, and sometimes, impossible behaviour of internet in Sierra Leone. And by the way the BBC equipment – the BGan – is not really intended to replace the normal internet service provision. Rather it is for quality sound in doing telephone interviews or for stronger internet signal if filing for TV or working in a remote jungle where internet structures barely or hardly exist. However in Sierra Leone it has been serving as my main source of internet access if I am to do any meaningful BBC work with sound or picture files.
I struggled for two hours without being able to access even my email to inform BBC that I could not file. Then I proceeded to the nearby Airtel mast where I sat right inside their V-Sat room, if that’s what it is called. Yet I could not access even my mailbox. As the deadline caught up with me I decided to call the Airtel Internet customer care number. For 15 minutes no-one would help me. I was either told to wait unendingly or no-one would pick my calls. Then I resorted to talking to my friends who work at the company and one of them helped but only just.
I was given a number for one of the IT guys whom I called. I could not be helped. “Reboot your computer” he advised. I did, despite having done so three times before his advice. Nor would he admit that their system was ineffectual. He suggested to me later that it was because of the volume of voice calls from the area which he said was their priority. Fair enough. But the truth is that was NOT TRUE. But even that voice call is a luxury at Njala with people having to keep changing positions to only be able to put through a call.
The students are out of town save for a few final year ones. And the rest of Njala is almost lifeless and poor hence one can count the number of voice calls from the place. So how that nonexistent deluge of voice calls could be affecting the internet only the Airtel IT guy knows. The Airtel Internet is, simply put, USELESS especially in that part of the country! And they kept sending back my credit balance whenever I tried my iPhone to go online alongside my modem.
So you see...I get my money from working as a journalist from which I give Airtel almost US$ 200 every month. And here they are endangering that job, not for the first time, with absolute recklessness.
That said, where else can I go? It is probably the lack of a viable alternative that the company is taking advantage of. Bad as they may be, they are the best of all individual internet service providers. So that gives you an idea of how bad things really are in the country. Basic internet access in this day and age is an extreme luxury, despite all the hype about the Fibre Optic. I know it is a World Bank project for which laidback African governments would want to take all the credit. So since the government of Sierra Leone has been trumpeting it as theirs I will tell them to stop talking about it because it is adding to our stress level.
Meanwhile the other mobile phone companies are worse. Airtel shamelessly keep pumping out ads on radio about having the best internet access which is 3G bla bla bla. So when I travelled to Europe recently I dipped from my not-very-deep pocket to part with nearly 600 Euros to buy a Samsung Galaxy S III smart phone. A fantastic piece of technological genius which has not served me any purpose apart from receiving calls. Thanks to Africell. Because Airtel had been frustrating me I decided to have my Africell sim in this one. Shockingly and scandalously, the Africell Internet simply DOES NOT WORK AT ALL!!!!
Then I thought of having my Comium Sim card into it. Comium, rather ridiculously, said they only provided internet access to their corporate customers. I asked what it meant to join that elite group and they told me. I decided to give it a try. But I was warned by my wife to check the efficacy of their service first. My wife, who’s on many occasions proved to be my brain, proved just that this time again. I spoke with a friend who’s a corporate customer with Comium and he advised me against joining it. I used his phone for two days, and it was a nightmare – making me grow grey hair far longer and greyer than Airtel’s caused me.
As for SIERRATEL, their business acumen is so low that they are not even worth trying. Can someone tell them that in these things your profit actually comes from subscription and not modem sales. Their modem is very expensive. And the speed is no much better.
So in a nutshell are we not justified to blame it on the National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM). They have been doing a great job in trying to stem the criminality that besets ICT especially in the developing world by preying on illegal connections and imposing fines. They have also been great in revenue generation. However, they have not been seeking the welfare of the consumers as it relates to dealing with the operators. This sometimes makes me wonder why NATCOM even has a commissioner representing consumer and clamours over consumer protection. I understand perfectly that the solution does not lie in withdrawing the licences of the mobile phone companies. The socioeconomic implications of such an action can be very dire so much so that jobs will be lost and the revenue paid to government by these companies will leave a gaping hole in its response to social services.
However, these mobile phone companies can be reigned in on in other ways such as through the imposition of fines. If there is anyone at NATCOM claiming to represent the consumers – I wonder what qualified him to be there in the first place – that person must show some substance. The other commissioners must think about this country and the helpless hapless ones and do something about this taking-for-granted attitude of these mobile phone companies.
By the way sorry, I did not forget to check my email or download or upload or even attach something for you here. I just was not able to. I have just tried and tried and tried and it is just not working. I will try again next time. I am hoping against hope that I will be successful. Sounds pretty much like gambling with a fundamental right. NATCOM, save us!
(c) Politico 14 August 2012
