Consumers of MTN Rwanda services have said they are optimistic of better services following a notice to the telecommunication company by the sector regulator to fix glitches that have for months blighted their services. On Monday, August 23, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) issued an order to MTN Rwanda – the biggest operator by market share – urging them to solve all network connection issues. These include poor calls connections (first attempts failures), drop calls and Silent/Garbled-Speech Calls. “The poor calling connections with MTN has been for a very long time, we were starting to think that it will never be solved at all but we are happy the government intervened,” said Mignone Akaliza, a Kigali resident. On social media platforms including Twitter, the new directive was also met with excitement with many people sharing their frustrations with the operator which has affected them in various ways. Others shared their concerns with The New Times, wondering why poor internet connectivity was not highlighted among the problems to be solved; Many of those affected by poor internet connections are students who have been following their classes online owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, “Most of the complaints we hear in class are of students complaining about their internet connection which doesn’t allow them to fully participate in class. This might make a whole hour of a course go to waste,” said Etienne Nkunzumgisha, a university facilitator. “I hate studying online. I stay most of the time seated in front of a laptop indicating that I had poor connection. It is so annoying and I have missed out on many courses,” said Huguette Kamikazi, a university student. Also Claire Kabandana, a marketing analyst shared; “I use my mobile internet when I’m working from home, but it is so slow and I can’t have a zoom meeting on it. Unless I buy a 4G internet, which is expensive for me but still not that efficient”. Speaking to The New Times, Charles Gahungu, the General Manager in charge of ICT Regulation at RURA said that the enforcement notice touches both the voice and data network connections. “We avoided using technical terms that might confuse the public, but we overall inspect if a cellular network meets the minimum parameters set, both on voice and data network connections and we will keep doing that.” He also highlighted that this should serve as a warning to all cellular network providers operating in Rwanda in general. According to the notice, MTN Rwanda will have to fix the glitches by October 29, 2021 in Kigali City and by November 30, 2021 in the rest of the country. Failure to do so, they will face regulatory sanctions. Efforts to get a comment from MTN Rwanda were futile by the time of publication.
