Telecommunications subscribers have continued to groan over poor quality of service by all the operators, as  telephony services across the country remain poor.

Subscribers who spoke to Daily Sun, claimed they have been experiencing increased dropped calls, aborted and undelivered short message service (SMS), and countless failed calls.

Equally, they complained that Internet service remained a challenge, just as much as uploading and downloading activities, all of which make 4G services nothing to write home about, despite promises of improved services.

Narrating his experience specially, Obioma Nwosu, who said he was an Airtel subscriber, complained that he had been experiencing dropped calls and countless failed calls in the last two month. According to him, dropped calls uncompleted calls, and the menace of unsolicited SMS remain the order of the day with the networks.

Another subscriber, Toyin Olusola, a businesswoman, also complained of dropped calls and connection failures. She lamented that her clients now find it difficult to reach her for business transactions, “on a more serious note, sometime in March, I almost lost a business worth million because they claimed I could not be reached, whereas my phone had the 4G network signal bars on. It is really annoying.”

Jude Onochie, who travelled to the East,  called this reporter lamenting that all the service providers have issues.

“Using my 9mobile line for calls here is really stressful and data speed can be very slow at times. MTN is fair sometimes, but not dependable. For some days now, I have to try a number more than once before it goes through. What is really happening?” he queried.

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Also, subscribers complained that their data experience has been terrible: “We don’t get the data value of our money. The speed is slow and, before you know it, your data subscription has been exhausted.”

Speaking earlier at a forum, a telecoms expert, Kehinde Aluko, wondered how long Nigerians would continue to suffer, despite spending between N2 trillion and N3 trillion on telecoms services, especially on airtime, annually.

Aluko noted that the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set by the NCC do not reflect their performance and challenges of the industry, “I think something drastic needs to be done. There is serious rip-off in the sector; how will I send a text, money will be removed and the message will not get to destination? Or how do you explain dialling a number, the number is not connecting and your money is removed? The situation is disheartening.”

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said poor telecommunication services will persist as long as social problems such as wilful damage of telecommunications infrastructure, and epileptic power supply persist Nigeria.

He added that the operating environment was not conducive enough to maintain uninterrupted services.

Adebayo urged the federal and state governments to synergise and come to the aid of operators in solving the issues of multiple taxes and regulations affecting the growth of the industry.

He argued that no business would thrive