Service Disruptions Rile Mascom Subscribers

Isaac Pinielo | Monday May 22, 2017 14:58

Of late, mobile phone users who subscribe to the Mascom network, expressed displeasure at the mobile phone giant, with some taking to the social media to vent their frustrations for what they say is “poor service”. Mascom is one of the three companies to establish, maintain and operate a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network in Botswana. Currently, the company commands a market share of around 52% with over 1.7 million subscribers.

Despite having a strong subscriber base, the mobile phone operator seems to have failed to live up to expectations of its customers due to poor connectivity and internet services both in urban and rural areas.

Now customers are using social media to share their unsatisfactory experiences.

Most recently, a mobile phone user posted on the Consumer Watchdog Botswana Facebook page encouraging other users to protest against Mascom.

The post attracted more than 140 comments, with one that read: “Mascom is becoming worse by the day. The internet is so poor… they are crooks. They will consume your airtime despite their poor internet network”.

Another comment was from a user who alleged that she raised a complaint with the service provider only to be told that the problem was with her phone.

Business Monitor also talked to another Francistown-based subscriber, Lopang Sebereko, who claimed to have been using Mascom for more than 15 years. He said by far the Mascom network is the poorest in internet connection. “The reason we are still clinging on to their network is because of the internet bundle packages,” he said.

However, Sebereko, who is an accountant, is of the view that all the three networks have their unique faults, adding that there are places where the Mascom network works well and where it does not just like in other rival mobile networks.

He said as a customer, he has not yet come to a point where he would abandon the service provider. Meanwhile, the mobile phone service provider has sent out short message services (SMS) to the customers that read: “You may have had some difficulty accessing service yesterday, the network is now working as normal. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused”.

The message was followed by another one, which read: “We apologise for service failure experienced last Thursday. For your convenience, your data subscription has been extended by one day,” Mascom said.

However, this has not stopped users from spewing their anger, as they indicated that things have not improved as they still experience network failure and their data constantly disappearing without explanation.

When contacted for comment, Mascom chief communications and public relations officer, Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego acknowledged that there was a service disruption that lasted for about three hours, citing as an example of such, one experienced on April 20, 2017.

She said Mascom has duly apologised to the customers and provided a full day compensation for those clients whose data subscription validity was affected.