Exploitative Entry of GSM Service Providers

If there is one thing I respect the GSM operatives in Nigeria for, it is their commitment to advertising. I remember how MTN totally captivated my children with their debut TV commercials. There was a particular TVC that featured ‘ordinary’ people while I could not easily link the characters with NTN’s ‘out-of-world’ tariffs.

Nigeria is a free society and the service providers cashed in on that. An interesting theme by MTN was ‘freedom.’ Freedom is synonymous with the absence of restraint; according to D.D. Raphael, a professor of Political Philosophy, a man is free in so far as he is not restrained from doing what he wants to do or what he would choose to do if he knew that he could. Choice in itself implies a kind of freedom because since it is the selection of one possibility among many others, more than one possibility must be open to us before we can be said to have a choice; as many as more than three service providers should have been simultaneously licensed to enable Nigerians to truly have a choice.

I started out with MTN so I would like to critique its Pay As You Go package vis-à-vis the concept of ‘freedom.’ Philosophical idealism is a metaphysical doctrine which holds that the mental or spiritual is real and that the material is not; it is called Idealism because it regards idea, the content and activity of the mind as the stuff of reality. According to the most influential school of Philosophical Idealists through its ethical theory of Self-Realization, the end of human life is to realize the ‘true’ or ‘higher’ self.

For the idealists, freedom must have a close connection with self-realization if freedom is to be of value. A man, according to them, is truly free when he has realized his true self. For most liberal thinkers, it is the deliberate actions of others that inhibit the liberty of the individual. The then-Econet’s ‘Libertie’ package amounted to hypocrisy as the least in that group forced a minimum of N5,000 from the subscriber’s account with the willing cooperation of his/her bank manager. I therefore could not understand the ‘liberty’ in that action.

The cases of ‘unfreedom’ that illuminate the liberal thinkers’ concept of the limits on liberty imposed by political and other authorities are imprisonment, slavery, severe restrictions on choice of consumer goods and any action deterred by a law backed by sanctions. According to Norman P. Barry, to be free to do something is not to be restrained, while to be able is to have the capacity, financial or otherwise to do something. This is a clear case of conceptual distinction between Liberty (not being restrained) and the conditions which make liberty worthwhile (affordability).

I was free to obtain an MTN line but could I afford to? There is a distinction between ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to.’ It is not merely the fact that an economically disadvantaged person who is not legally prevented from owning a mobile line enjoys only a derisory liberty, but that freedom itself requires positive action by the state. It is this reasoning that has been used to justify social legislation designed to increase the opportunities of individuals.

We should have started with as many service providers as possible so that tariffs would never have been high up there in the first place. The Nigerian state through its agent, NCC, could have made sure that the entry of GSM service providers did not come with exploitation. I recall the arrogance of most of the pioneer staff of the telecommunications companies as I tried to purchase a line.

At Econet one could not easily get past the receptionist, and if you did, you would meet marketing executives with headphones listening to music from their notebooks. I wondered what they were doing there if they did not even know the exact address of their ‘friendship’ centre along Awolowo Road, S.W. Ikoyi! And to imagine that this slip came from somebody I briefly mentored in advertising before the ‘cross-over!’ Meanwhile at the centre you had no privilege of owning an information leaflet talk less of brochure.

While MTN was customer-centric, Econet (sorry, Vodacom, nay, Vmobile- what a confused organization!) cut the picture of a disoriented organization. Today members of the Fourth Realm of the Estate are screaming that the company’s image-maker, an old acquaintance of mine, is not a model in PR! In their early marketing communication messages both MTN and Econet completely misunderstood ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ even as we were thoroughly exploited. We were enslaved because of our knack for materialism.

As I connected to MTN’s Pay As You Go, I was billed for calling an MTN number which gave me access to voice messages; I had to pay an extra set-up fee for me to have a calling line identity facility activated; I could not bar calls not even for a fee; for me to listen to what my call credit balance was, including access days left, I was billed; I needed to pay a special one-off set-up fee to have the call holding/call waiting facility activated on my phone; I paid while calling MTN customer service lines, etc. Where on earth was the freedom? Where was the liberty?

I was connected with a handset which MTN sold for N17, 500 while the same device sells for N6, 000 today! I bought my line for N20, 000 but today it sells for less than N500! All these changes occurred in a spate of four years! In annoyance, I bought another MTN line four months ago though I am not sure of what I want to do with it as I am yet to activate it. I actually used my MTN line for less than a year as I transferred it to my spouse; I have been on the Vmobile network ever since.

Globacom has since joined MTN, Vmobile and Mtel in the GSM race. I still believe that we should have more players in the telecommunications industry. Call tariffs are still high and services are frustratingly poor.