MTN Nigeria blames fibre cuts for poor network quality; shut out calls, data of 87m subscrbers

Multiple fibre cuts has hindered MTN subscribers‘ ability to make calls and browse the internet for hours on Wednesday.

The leading Nigerian telco company, MTN Nigeria has blamed fibre cuts for the recent difficulty in making calls and data usage that customers are currently experiencing across the country. The outage has made it difficult for subscribers to make calls or access data-enabled services for about six hours.

Funso Aina, senior manager of external relations, MTN Nigeria acknowledged this Wednesday saying, “Our customers have been experiencing challenges connecting to the network due to a major service outage caused by multiple fibre cuts, affecting voice and data services.

“Our engineers are working hard to resolve with services gradually being restored in some areas.”

There has been an outcry by numerous users on popular social media platforms about the poor network quality. The apprehension is compounded by the Wednesday deadline given by NCC to all telecom operators in the country to block lines that are not linked with the users’ NIN .

As a result, many of the 87.04 million subscribers on the MTN network who were unable to make or receive calls on their lines were not sure if their lines had been barred.

Report has it that MTN Nigeria had sent a direct message to subscribers that indicated that the service outage affected all the regions of the country. According to the communication, the problem started at about 1.39 PM, Wednesday, February 28.

Fibre cuts are perennial causes of poor service quality in the Nigerian telecommunications space. In Nigeria, fibre cuts are largely owing to major construction activities and in other cases, deliberate acts of vandalism.

Recall that MTN had a similar downtime in October 2021. According to the company, the incident was because of a disruption in its core network.

In telecoms, the core network or backbone network is a high-capacity communication facility. It is the central element of a telco’s network that provides services to customers who are connected by the access network.