May 28

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HERITAGE MONDAY, MAY 28, 2018
My phone is never
switched off — MTN
BY NANA BRAM OKAE II
THE TELECOM
giant, MTN, is
playing some expensive
tricks on
me in recent times
and I suspect I’m
not the only victim of this scandalous
practice by this telecom
company.
Phone for business
Now that people use their
phones for business as well as
leisure, no hour passes for busy
people to have no calls of any
kind whatsoever. But that is
what is happening now, as far as
I’m concerned.
Last week Monday, for instance,
a subscriber tried to call
me on my MTN number the
whole morning and all that she
was told was that my phone had
been switched off. And that was
not the only occasion. I have had
several complaints from friends
and relatives wondering why I always
put my phone off these
days.
But my phone has never been
switched of; I never switch it off
even in the night and at meetings.
Silence mode
What I do even at meetings,
whether official or otherwise, is
to switch to vibration mode but
not to switch it off completely.
So, how come a caller would be
told by MTN that I had switched
my phone off or that I could not
be reached? It’s a lie.
MTN must up its game and
do what is right for the huge
number of subscribers it has
taken on.
My instincts tell me that
MTN has taken on more subscribers
than its machines can
handle and that is the cause of
this telephone ‘traffic jam’ or if
you like ‘load shedding,’ similar
to what we experienced in the
power sector when there was
limited supply of electric power
for an unlimited number of
users.
Telephone traffic jam
What I mean by telephone
‘traffic jam’ is this: that when a
telephone company has more
subscribers than it can handle at
a go, some callers will have to
naturally wait till others have
done theirs before they can have
their turn.
It’s like vehicles on the road.
When there are several cars we
have traffic jams on the road but
when the cars are fewer there is
free flow of traffic. Reader can
verify for himself what happens
on the Kasoa-Mallam road from
4am to 9am and from 11am to
3pm.
You may recall the joke in the not-too-distant
past when you called a person sitting
next to you and the answer would be: ‘the
person you are trying to call cannot be
reached’ which induced prolonged laughter.
This is no more a laughing matter as
we now use the mobile phone for business
and other important messages and not for
fun.
You will see two different scenarios;
one, bumper-to-bumper
traffic jam and the other, free
flow of cars. I suspect this is a
similar thing that happens in the
telephone industry—too many
subscribers and yet inadequate
equipment to cope with the large
numbers who have been taken
on board. Or similar to the
power load shedding I’ve alluded
to above.
Scandalous practice
Frankly, this scandalous practice
didn’t start today. It has been
with us for a very long time now
but it’s reaching alarming proportions
these days given the
number of people desiring to
use the mobile phone even in
the remotest parts of the country.
You may recall the joke in the
not-too-distant past when you
called a person sitting next to
you and the answer would be:
‘the person you are trying to call
cannot be reached’ which induced
prolonged laughter. This
is no more a laughing matter as
we now use the mobile phone
for business and other important
messages and not for fun.
Those were the infant days of
mobile telephony in Ghana and
that was the reason why many
people took to having additional
numbers from all the different
networks just to remain connected
at all times, not some of
the times.
Other networks
Today, because of this scandalous
practice by MTN, there is
the great need to subscribe to
other networks so that you will
always be in touch. If you cannot
get through via one network,
you fall on the other one or
ones. This is what I do and this
is what many of my friends and
millions of Ghanaians do; everybody
has more than two lines.
‘The number you are trying to
call cannot be reached’ is not the
only problem facing MTN subscribers.
I called a friend’s number
the other day and the call
went astray, if I should put it
that way. The person picked the
call and started speaking in Dagbani.
I don’t speak that beautiful
language and I politely told him
that my call had gone to a wrong
number.
He may not have understood
what I said so he went onto
WhatsApp and sent me a voice
message. And I replied this way:
‘There is a mix-up of my number
and yours. I’m not the uncle
you perceive to be. There is a
problem at MTN and many calls
go to unintended destinations.
Honestly, I don’t know you; I
don’t understand your language’
before he let go.
My instincts tell
me that MTN has
taken on more
subscribers than
its machines can
handle and that
is the cause of
this telephone
‘traffic jam’ or if
you like ‘load
shedding,’ similar
to what we experienced
in the
power sector
when there was
limited supply of
electric power for
an unlimited
number of users.
Another destination
There was also another instance
when a person telephoning
me had his call unfortunately
directed to another destination.
The person at the other end was
speaking Hausa thereupon my
friend became alarmed and hung
up. In a later conversation, he
told me what had happened.
Last month, a friend of mine
sent me a message advising me
to check whether my phone was
being monitored by some one or
not. He directed me as to which
numbers to call and I would be
ok. He said if I did that and my
phone showed ‘call forwarded’
that would confirm that my
phone number was being monitored
otherwise it would show
‘not forwarded’ meaning I was
not a target of monitoring.
He showed me also how to
de-activate it if I found my number
being monitored. I followed
his instructions and de-activated
what was being done on my
phone.
What is happening, MTN?
Are you monitoring my phone
and for what reason? Frankly, I
don’t give a dime if my phone is
being monitored for whatever
reason or reasons. I don’t deal in
narcotics; nor do I deal in money
laundering.
But is that the game MTN is
playing now? We know that the
former National Communications
Board under the erstwhile
John Mahama government took
it upon itself to listen to telephone
conversations of citizens
of this country for, presumably,
political purposes.
Concept
That concept never materialized
and those involved now
have a case to answer at the
High Court for one thing or the
other. So, we know for now that
listening to conversations of
Ghanaians on phone has not
been sanctioned by any Ghanaian
government to be activated.
So, what’s going on?
MTN may do well to purge itself
of these accusations. If it
knows it can’t handle X number
of subscribers going by the current
machines it has, it should
stop there and eliminate the
frustrations it is visiting on us.
No one is happy to place a call
and be told that the person being
called is not reachable when in
fact, that is not the case.
No one also wants to make a
call and have it directed elsewhere
for no apparent reason
but inefficiency. The slogan,
‘MTN, wherever you go!’ is only
a platitude, from the look of
things, meant to hoodwink the
people of Ghana.
Last month, a friend of
mine sent me a message
advising me to
check whether my
phone was being monitored
by some one or
not. He directed me as
to which numbers to call
and I would be ok. He
said if I did that and my
phone showed ‘call forwarded’
that would confirm
that my phone
number was being monitored
otherwise it would
show ‘not forwarded’
meaning I was not a target
of monitoring.