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Economy suffering as networks sleep

Lilly Nyoni has no kind words for mobile operators in the country. Nyoni and her colleague Memory Chirwa who make a living selling mobile airtime cards at the heart of Mzuzu City, but of late their take home cash has dwindled because of low sales as a result of poor telecommunications network and data outages.

“Network outage affects the airtime credit business a lot,” Nyoni says.

Malawians are spending too much time on ATM queues due to network problem
Malawians are spending too much time on ATM queues due to network problem

“When mobile users are frustrated they do not buy airtime, which means less take home money for us,” Nyoni told Business Review.

She says erratic and poor telecommunication network has over the past two months negatively impacted their livelihoods.

According to Nyoni and Chirwa, life gets even harder if there is  network problems for longer periods of time as their returns can fall from an average of K20 000 ($44) to a mere K6 000 ($13).

Nyoni says, for example, her darkest day was on June 1 2015 when she could not sell any airtime the entire day as for close to ten hours users had no connection since two mobile operators TNM and Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) had a network outage.

Telecommunication network outages, often blamed on sabotage or undersea cable breakages are becoming a norm in Malawi.

Banks have been hit hard with automated-teller machines (ATMs) out of service most of the time due to network outages.

Mobile money clients too have not been spared the crisis.

But coupled with a recent SMS and data price hike, Malawian consumers are angry.

Some told Business Review that with the high tariffs they pay, they do not expect poor service as is the case now such that they have been left with no choice but to take to the streets to protest over poor services in the country.

Malawians feel they are getting a raw deal from mobile telecommunication, service providers in a country where using a  mobile phone is the most expensive at 56.2 percent of average monthly earning according to a February 2015 BBC report.

Billy Mayaya, one such irritated consumer and organiser of the planned protests,  told the media there is a general outcry that the telecommunication services ‘are becoming prohibitive in terms of costs, network availability and quality assurance’.

 

Economy suffering

Nelson Mkandawire, an economist and former chairperson of Economics Association of Malawi (Ecama), says when the telecommunications network sleeps the economy suffers as communication enhances and lubricates trade.

“[These days] we depend on mobile money, the Internet and mobile banking to do some financial transactions, therefore, when we experience poor network all this cease to function,” Mkandawire explains.

He says delayed communications that investors experience when faced with a bad network affects decisions around trade and productivity.

“It is a mockery to the customer to see these mobile service providers posting huge profits to their accounts while failing to give the best to a customer who is being charged hugely without considering the hiccups they are facing,” Mkandawire laments.

He says time has come for telecommunication companies in the country to give out their best to their customers who have helped them grow over the years.

The Minister of Information, Tourism and Culture Kondwani Nankhumwa agrees with Mkandawire saying network problems are a threat to the country’s security as well.

“Not only does the economy suffer but also security of the nation is compromised in cases of mobile network breakdowns,” warns Nankhumwa.

Equally concerned with poor network and consistent outages is the regulator, the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra).

Andrew Kumbatira, Macra director general, thinks the mobile operators ‘indeed should do better’, but is quick to point out that ‘in some cases, the network challenges are beyond the control of the operators’.

“For instance, the June 1, outage was caused by vandals who tampered with the optic cables—leaving no choice to the service providers,” explains Kumbatira.

 

Power outages

Macra also blames the persistent power outages that the country experiences as another huge factor that burdens the telecommunications industry.

“Power outages build up as costs and eats onto [mobile operators] revenues,” Kumbatira argues.

“For instance, when there is a power outage, they run on gen sets, which are expensive to run” Kumbatira adds.

He says all Macra insists on is that the mobile operators should providers alerts to their customers when their system is down.

On backup, Macra is not upfront, but says the mobile service providers’ licence has back up as one of the requirements.

 

Back up

TNM says they have a redundant network which acts as backupwhen main network experiences problems. The mobile operator say it has two control centres in the cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe.

“TNM has an active redundant network setup that automatically routes traffic to the redundant route if there is a problem on the other route of the network,” Limbani Nsapato, TNM public relations and sponsorship manager told Business Review.

He explains that the mobile telecommunication operator also has in place a network monitoring centre (NMC) in Lilongwe where a team monitors the network performance around the clock in real time and is able to detect any problems to the network across Malawi for immediate intervention.

“If Blantyre is down then Lilongwe takes over, but the challenge that we are facing is that vandals are continuously vandalising MTL cables, which Lilongwe and Mzuzu to an extent rely on,” Nsapato explains.

Explaining the network outages, Nsapato says telecommunications infrastructure by nature will sometimes not function according to plan, which may be due to issues with power supply or other generic faults inherent with telecoms everywhere.

He says the company has a robust system to monitor the system quality and availability and rectifies any faults as soon as they are identified.

“However, as you may be aware in some areas TNM relies on fibre network and the recent outage in the Northern Region was a result of theft and vandalism of fibre cables which by sheer coincidence happened in isolation but coincided and affected all routes at the same time,” he explains.

Nsapato calls upon the communities and the public to be vigilant in helping operators to protect telecommunication equipment against vandalism and theft.

Airtel Malawi  public relations and corporate communications manager Edith Tsilizani also says the company has backup system at Disaster Recovery Centres located in Blantyre and Lilongwe.

She says the Blantyre centre has two locations while the capital city one has three, these ensure less impact in times of network failure.

“We, however, have plans to set up a complete recovery plan in the near future,” Tsilizani says.

 

 High demand

According to Macra there has been a huge increase in the number of mobile users since the introduction of the mobile phones in 1995 from 38 202 users in 2000 to 5  345 375 by end 2013.  While the combined teledensity for fixed and mobile services currently stand at 39 percent.

The use of mobile phones has also increased from the basic voice and SMS services to include data services like the Internet which most consumers complain to be slow.

Clara Mulonya, Macra communications officer, says value added services like mobile money (Airtel Money and TNM Mpamba) have spurred economic activity between urban and rural areas which is enough evidence that the use of the mobile phone is not only restricted to basic services but can as well be extended to other services benefiting all sectors of the economy.

Mulonya says the banking sector has also not been left out as evidenced by the mobile banking.

“Additionally, mobile phones have also been used to disseminate and collect health information through adapted mobile applications as well as being used in other areas of information dissemination  emergency and relief services,” she says.

It is, therefore, a fact that consumers including organisations and government are relying on mobile or online systems as the major means delivering information and services to the general public.

 

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One Comment

  1. Network coverage in Malawi is sucks period. Mobile network companies simply fooling people. When one goes to the village you have to climb trees to try access signals . What a joke. Escom is even making matters worse

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