₦airaland Forum

At the risk of repeating myself and several others who have made the same point in many threads, the GSM operators are not a public service, they are here to make money by offering us a service they believe we want. If we as consumers are not happy with the quality of service they are providing, then the only course of action we have is to stop using the service in question and in time commercial reality and/or competition will force them to improve the level of service to a standard where we are prepared to commence using it again.

The brutal truth is that absolutely nobody is forced to use the service the GSM operators provide so merely complaining about will not make an iota of difference.

@africanboy, I take your point about the Symbian stuff and for the record, I live and work in Nigeria, in Lagos to be precise.

Omo Eko ni mi

My personal preference is Hotmail however it has to be said that Hotmail in particular and Yahoo to a lesser extent are both somewhat dated now and therefore offer less features than the newer Gmail.

Hotmail has released beta versions of it's new mail service "Windows Live Mail" (http://www.ideas.live.com/) which promises to rival anything offered by it's competitors however I suppose only time will tell,

@sbucareer, Great work! I'm sure many people will find your tutorial very informative.

@africanboy

I think you are selling Nigeria short. As a consultant, I have worked with many clients here in Nigeria who are not only interested in the user interface (although it is important) but are also very particular about the architecture over which the solution is deployed. A significant number of clients have specifically requested J2EE solutions deployed in WebLogic, JBoss and so on but having said that I'm certainly not saying that everybody is or should be a fan of java.

One further point, unless I'm mistaken Symbian is an OS and you can in fact develop java applications that will run in Symbian. You can certainly argue that java applications run faster on Symbian than on other OS but the point here is the OS and not the programming language.

In my opinion, constructive criticism of a programming language should revolve around memory requirements, garbage collection (or the lack of it), flexibility in terms of target platforms, ease of debugging etc. It is important as has been mentioned in this thread on a number of occasions, to clearly understand the difference between java and java script before making blanket assertions.

My advice to the newbie would be to learn the basic principles of programming which apply to all languages first and then explore several languages. In my experience good programmers are confortable working in 2 or 3 languages and are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each one as it is almost always the case that no single programming language is ideal for all situations.

goodguy:
The only problem with Win 98 (which really isn't a problem) is the fact that it doesn't have as much features as there are in Win 2000 and XP. The only special features of XP are the colourful environs and the extra petty features. Any other thing is nonsense. Win XP is the most vulnerable to computer infections such as Virus attack, Spyware and Adware attack. Plus, it's files get corrupt so fast and easily. Most computer engineers prefer Win 98.

I'm my opinion, the above statement proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are definitely not a computer engineer. Anyway, to counter your arguement, the following are just a few of the key features implemented in XP:

- The ability to define Restore points to allow you to roll back hardware and software changes to a previous point in time.
- Internet Connection Firewall that allows you to restrict access to your machine.
- Compatibility Mode which allows you to execute programs with different screen resolutions or with different environment settings such as Windows 95, 98, Me or NT4-SP5.
- Universal Plug and Play support along with wider support for additional hardware
- Ability to run DLLs in parallel (end of DLL Hell). This technology protects existing applications and Windows itself from being disrupted by installations that modified system DLLs.
- Increased stability over Windows 98/Me and slightly improved stability over Windows 2000.
- Remote Assistance: the ability to invite somebody to view or control your desktop in much the same way as Timbuktu or pcAnywhere.
- Fast user switching. By taking advantage of the Terminal Services technology built into Windows XP one user can login without actually logging out the previous user.
- Internet Explorer 6.x.
- Windows Media Player 8 and Windows Movie Maker provide Digital Audio and Digital Video support respectively.
- Built-in CD-R/CD-RW support.
- Ability to handle updates automatically.
- DirectX 8.x support.

This list goes on but I think I've made my point.

Excluding the zero prefix when dialling international and including it when dialling locally is an international convention implemented all over the world.  The way to get round it is to always store all your numbers in international format so for example the following VMobile number 08021234567 should be stored as +2348021234567. That way you don't have to worry about including or excluding the zero prefix. I should also add that dialling a local number in international format will still be charged at local rates.

@Bagoma, @Mamba
I hear you you guys but I still think you're missing the point. The fact is that if you go to a trader selling meat in the market, if you don't like the price or the quality of the meat, you simply go somewhere else.

@Mamba
I agree with with you in that I would like to see number porting in Nigeria too however I'm not sure that many subscribers would leave MTN otherwise they would already do so now that SIM packs are so cheap. The fact of the matter is despite it's poor customer service, high tariffs etc, MTN still has the best nationwide coverage and only when the other operators address this issue will they be in a position to take significant market share from MTN.

koni:
All their recharge cards are over priced, they are trying to pull an elitist stunt on a service(telecoms) that is meant to be available to everybody.

Following your argument, I suppose BMW & Mercedes are also guilty of "pulling an elitist stunt" since cars are supposed to be available to everybody, right?

It's a simple matter of capacity. If MTN were to send automatic delivery reports for all subscribers that want it, the system wouldn't be able to cope and subscribers would rightfully complaint about the time taken to deliver messages. VMobile & Glo can send delivery reports because the volume of traffic they process is considerably less than MTN.

It should also be noted that this is not unique to Nigeria in that the same situation exists in countries where there is insufficient network infrastructure to meet high demand. I imagine that MTN is trying to increase capacity as quickly as it can since more traffic means more profits however we all know how difficult it can be importing equipment into Nigeria.

As myself and many others have said several times, the most effective way to "revolt" is to stop using the service. Absolutely nobody in Nigeria is forced to use MTN

ondogi, Just one point, roaming is only available for post paid subscribers who pay their bill on a monthly basis and therefore don't use recharge cards.

Browsing via WAP uses a different technology to GPRS and they both have different pricing structures.

In fairness to MTN it does state on their website that GPRS charging will commence from 21st November (http://www.mtnonline.com/vas/sightzandsoundz.asp) and whilst you could argue that MTN should have done more to alert subscribers, we all knew it only be free for a limited time. I suspect that those who are complaining the most about the charging are probably the heaviest users of the service.

The ultimate reason for MTN's existence like any other commercial organization in the world is to make money. They are not here to "relieve antibody's burden" as you put it so of course they will look for all ways possible to generate more revenue. Having said that I absolutely agree with you that MTN should work hard to improve the level of service they provide here in Nigeria however that certainly does not preclude them from seeking alternative ways to facilitate the use of their services either here or abroad. As I said before, if you don't like it, don't use it.

As is the case in all free market economies all over the world, the strongest catalyst for service improvement and price reduction is competion and I believe that here in Nigeria, competion from the other operators is slowly beginning to challenge MTN's dominance in the market.

ondogi:
...how many nigerians use their MTN line in u.k? very few.

The point of the service is not to enable subscribers to use their phones in the UK where of course there is no coverage so I don't quite see the point of your argument here. 

ondogi:
So the ability to recharge remotely means someone in u.k have to recharge their phone for them

Like any service that you pay for in this world,  the customer makes the ultimate choice as to whether or not to use it, in other words nobody has to recharge anybody's phone if they don't want to.

Anyway, it's clear you don't agree with the concept of the service and you're of course perfectly entitled to your opinion however I think you're misguided in the reasons for your dislike of the service.  If I were to take your line of argument, I assume it would also be correct to assert that the fact that I can recharge my friend's UK prepaid O2 line from outside the UK means that the provision of the service is aimed at tapping the pockets of UK citizens living outside of the UK right?

ondogi:
Its ideas like this that turn nigeria into laughing stock in the comity of nations.

If you took the trouble to do some basic research before making such a sweeping statement, you would know that this is not a service that is unique to Nigeria. 

ondogi:
What a rubbish idea, so nigerians are so poverty stricken that they need people based abroad to pay their phone bills?

I would be very glad if you could clearly explain to me how the ability to recharge a prepaid line remotely makes us Nigerians "poverty stricken" as you put it?  If that is true, then the same applies to citizens of many other countries including a number of so called "developed" ones where it is also possible to recharge prepaid lines remotely.

I think you need to be a little more constructive in your criticism.

Affordable, just because MTN does not have coverage in the UK does not mean it's not a useful service. I believe that some people who are perhaps less cynical than you seem to be are happy to occasionally carry the "burden" (as you call it) of friends and/or relatives back home.

For me the fact of the matter is there are a lot of ways to set reminders for birthdays these days so although you could argue that there is no reason to forget by the same token I would also argue that "remembering" a birthday is no big deal particularly if it's done with a modern day electronic aid.

Personally, I'm more touched when my girlfriend completely unexpectedly does something special for me (i.e. not necessarily on my birthday).

I am heartened by the fact that here we are  having an open discussion about Female Genital Mutilation because this is one of those difficult topics which often causes us to bury our heads in the sand almost as though if we don't talk about it we don't have to deal with it. 

I'm particularly pleased to see that the overwhelming majority of contributors to this discussion unreservedly condemn the practice as in my opinion there is absolutely no justification, moral, medical or otherwise for performing such a barbaric act on a fellow human being especially as the unfortunate individual has absolutely no say in the matter.

Point taken.

However it's also probably safe to assume in that case that Globi-Nomi approached the other operators in Nigeria at the same time...

Who says MTN doesn't innovate?

We are all used to the constant criticism of MTN and I'm the first to admit that some of it is justified however it is also often the case that when MTN does launch a good service, there is little or no positive comment about it. MTN recently launched such a service whereby recharge cards can be bought in the UK and sent to family and/or friends in Nigeria and to the best of my knowledge, none of the other operators have launched a similar service.

Personally, I think it's an excellent idea and in my view MTN deserve to be applauded for launching this particular innovative service but don't just take my word for it, check out the following letter which appeared in This Day newspaper on Monday 31/10/2005.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=32072

Naturally, one very good innovative service doesn't in itself cancel or excuse the other problems we are all well aware of but surely in this particular case, we should give credit where credit is due?

Mamba,

Thanks for your comment and you're absolutely right that it's not a big deal. The only reason I mentioned it is because I know that the device type can be detected from the user agent string sent to the server so the server is better able to decide when to display the message. This is how it is handled by other web sites and I just thought that there may be a desire to implement this small enhancement when the opportunity is available..

Seun,

First I just want to say what a great job you've done on the wap version of Nairaland. I access the site via an iPAQ PDA and it works very well and page completion times are very good.

The only minor point I would make is that the system detects my device as a desktop machine and therefore prompts me on every page to visit the full HTML version which I don't particularly want to do. Other than that, everything else works flawlessly.

Great job!

What you are referring to is MTN's "Prepaid Menu" service which is an SMS based service that enables subscribers to load a virtual booster and/or migrate between different tariff plans (i.e. Migrate from per minute to per second billing). The SMS is free but there is a charge for migrations and of course for loading a virtual booster. Sending 0 in an SMS to 131 returns the codes for the top level menu options.

I think "whocares" hit the nail right on the head

It should also be noted that poor customer service is certainly not unique to MTN.  I believe it's a general problem we have in Nigeria but having said that it is of course up to organizations to make the effort to improve this.

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort we Nigerians expend in complaining about MTN. The fact of the matter is that MTN certainly has it's problems (i.e. I think we all agree they are not very customer friendly etc.) however at the end of the day MTN is not a public service. It's a business providing a service to consumers and therefore we the consumers have the ultimate sanction of moving to another operator if we are not satisfied with the service they provide.

I also find that it is also sadly sometimes the case that people criticize MTN from a position of absolute ignorance and they therefore don't add anything to the debate. Constructive criticism is a very good thing and I think we should therefore try to use this forum to make valid points to MTN about deficiencies in their service especially as I suspect that MTN management probably read these forums more often that we may think.