On 9 October 2021, some MTN subscribers across Nigeria had experienced service outages that rendered them unable to connect with family and friends and unable to conduct their businesses.
According to Nairametric‘s findings, MTN was unable to process calls, SMS, and data services for customers on its network from 14:30 on Saturday. Customers that had SIM cards for other providers were shifting to other networks in the meanwhile to be able to communicate in their personal and professional lives.
MTN Nigeria has issued an official apology, echoed by CEO Karl Toriola via a message uploaded to the telecom company’s official YouTube channel.
“On behalf of the entire MTN team I want to start with a heartfelt apology,” Toriola began. “We are truly sorry for the disruption this caused for so many in our MTN family.”
“We know that millions of people rely on us to stay connected to their loved ones, to manage their businesses, to coordinate their lives. We take that responsibility and privilege, very seriously. That is why we are putting new measures in place to make sure we never experience anything like last Saturday again.”
According to Toriola, MTN Nigeria is putting “new measures” in place to ensure that the network doesn’t experience similar outages again. Saying that the outage by an error that “shifted all over 4G customers to the 3G band. This overloaded the 3G band, causing a domino effect that impacted the whole network.”
To compensate subscribers, Toriola stated that MTN Nigeria would provide refunds of airtime and data purchased on the day of the outage at no additional cost. Time-bound subscriptions were also extending “to ensure full value is delivered.”
“So, while we cannot give you back the time you lost on Saturday, we can give you back what you spent yesterday. Every customer on the MTN network has received a refund of the data and airtime they used between 12 noon and 7:00 pm yesterday. We hope that this should show how much we value you, our customer,” Toriola said in a statement from MTN.
By Luis Monzon
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