Poor Telecoms Service Affecting Calls, PoS Transactions
Poor telecommunication services in some states have led to dropped calls, frustrating browsing experience, and failed Point of Sales transactions.
Many workers, who work remotely amid movement restrictions in the country occasioned by the pandemic, have complained of unreliable network services, which had forced them to subscribe to two or more data service providers.
Also, mobile money operators have said the lockdown had caused a high demand for their services but network disruptions led to many failed transactions.
A software developer, Yinka Adegbite, said the nature of his work required that he communicates with team members over the internet and make long calls.
Adegbite, who resides in Lagos State, complained that making calls successfully had been almost impossible as he experienced dropped calls all through last week.
Also, a vendor of phone and technology products, Ifeanyi Akubue, complained that payments via banking apps and PoS terminals took more than one day to reflect in his business account.
He said, “The challenges we are having is with the banks. Bank transfer is giving us a lot of problems. The network is very slow.
“It becomes a problem between us and the customers because if we don’t see the alert, we cannot supply the goods.
“It is a very huge problem because if customers do a bank transfer, they have to wait for two to three hours.”
A mobile money operator with agents in Lagos, Ondo and Osun states, Mr Tope Alao, acknowledged that the demand for payments had increased but added that network disruption was making it difficult to satisfy customers.
According to him, his agents received several complaints regarding unsuccessful transfer and withdrawals during the lockdown.
However, Alao said mobile money agents had devised a means of getting refunds for customers within three days without having to wait for banks, whose fund reversal could take two weeks or more.
Also, checks by our correspondent showed that the failure rate of PoS transactions rose to 15 per cent on Monday.
Meanwhile, a network engineer, Mr Adewale Adesanya, confirmed that there had been degradation in quality of service because of the restriction of movement in states on total and partial lockdown.
Speaking to journalists in Lagos, he said the disruptions had affected online payments and other data services.
“We are aware that most of the PoS machines are having challenges. Most people went to banks to resolve issues due to the problems they encountered with payments on online,” he said.
He said telecom workers had not been able to access some base stations located in estates and high-rise buildings due to restriction imposed by residents, landlords, and host communities.
