Why you experience poor network now, ALTON explains

The Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has explained that the ongoing #EndSARS protest and crisis has caused the noticeable breakdown in telecoms services being experienced in some locations in the country.

As the association explained the linkage between the two scenarios, it regretted the reports of recent incidents of violence across the country.

“The wanton destruction of lives and properties is disheartening. As service providers and employers of labour, our immediate priority is the safety of our staff across the country,” it said in a communiqué delivered to Business Metrics.

ALTON explained that unfortunately, some of telecoms operators experienced outages on their networks on Tuesday evening, which still subsists till the moment. “None of this was intentional,” it said.

The association said the outages have been compounded by power and other operations-related issues that have occurred across some major routes in Lagos metropolis and other states resulting in congestion of networks and impact on quality of services.

Engr Gbenga Adebayo, ALTON Chairman

“Further movement restrictions and the volatility on the streets has compounded the restoration of outages because engineers have not been able to move about to fix the problems.

“At the moment, affected member operators are exploiting all avenues to remedy the situation.

“Engineers are making relentless effort round the clock to resolve issues, while in the interim, efforts are being made to optimize coverage utilising alternative solutions as a stop-gap solution to the most impacted locations.

“We appeal to subscribers to please bear with us and be patient. Let us remember that we need both voice and data communication especially at this critical time.

“We therefore appeal to our brothers and sisters who are still at the barricades, to please grant access to our member operator engineers to be able to access the affected locations to restore telecom services.

“We pray for comfort, peace and strength for all. Thank you,” the statement read.