INTERNET IN NIGERIA: I’ve been with @Spectranet_NG for about 5 years. The service was okay. I was paying N18,000 per month for a ‘Gold Unlimited Plan’ or something. However, working from home exposed them. There’s nothing unlimited about the plan. I decided to try others. Thread.
I teach research methods to a first year PhD class every year. Because of COVID-19, I couldn’t travel to the Netherlands this year and had to teach online. The university uses its own videoconferencing system called ‘Blackboard Learn’. Spectranet couldn’t cope.
We switched to Zoom as we heard that it uses slightly lower bandwidth. It was only a little better. We all had to switch off our videos. As the students were at home, they all had to mute their microphones. You’ll crack a joke and you can’t tell if anyone laughed. Frustrating.
Spectranet was only giving me 360kbpd. I called them out here and they said it slowed down because I had exhausted my “unlimited” data. I’ve been unhappy with them for a while. Their system can’t even carry Netflix.
As I was calling them out, @9mobileng jumped in and offered their mifi. I decided to give it a try. It cost me nearly N20,000. Basically, it was pretty useless. Maybe it’s not just good in my area. It simply did nothing. I had to use my phone as a hotspot most times.
Then someone suggested @ExploreLegend. I thought it probably makes the most sense because it is Fibre. It’s expensive o. The installation and first month subscription is N172,000. Monthly subscription is N35k. They said it will take 2-3 weeks. The office paid on my behalf.
As Spectranet was deathly slow and 9mobile simply didn’t work, waiting 3 weeks was very frustrating. In the meantime, my brother @Stanlee_Okeke helped me to get an @MTNNG Hynet modem. I am very very impressed by it. I paid N20k. It’s giving me speeds of nearly 9Mbps.
Part of the reasons of going ahead with the MTN system is because the customer service from @ExploreLegend is shockingly bad. I am blessed with very good blood pressure. When things cause me too much stress, I just let it go and stop worrying about it. That’s what I did.
You’ll call them and they won’t answer. When they can be bothered to answer, exchanges like this are common: Legend: Hello? Me: Is that Legend? Legend: Yeah? Me: Can you be a bit more enthusiastic about your job? There are many Nigerians looking for work. Legend: Ok. Me: Ok???
They’ll promise to return calls but they won’t. They can’t reach their installers. The email they send you contains a number for the installer but it is a wrong number. The time of the appointment in the email is fictitious. The installer comes whenever he likes. Usually late.
Nobody knows anything. Customer service doesn’t know installer. Installer doesn’t know anybody in the company. The supervisor is never “on seat” and never calls back. At a point, I stopped calling them and just left it, especially as my MTN Hynet was working excellently well.
3 weeks after I paid, they finally installed the system today. The road they dug up to lay the Fibre and all the interlocking tiles they removed are still there one week after they dug them up. Installer said he was too busy to help me reconfigure my wireless extenders and left.
He said many people had complained and that I should call them out publicly. I then went to their Twitter TL and it was just a catalogue of complaints. Same thing I have been complaining about. Shockingly poor customer care. Please take a look at their TL: @ExploreLegend
I believe that you have to make a deliberate effort to be that useless. It cannot come naturally to any business that plans to survive. You have to work very hard at it to be as bad as they are, because it is not an attitude any legitimate business would often have.
The Fibre itself is very fast. 22Mbps in Nigeria is very impressive. However, I fear for the business. I don’t think it will survive for much longer with that kind of customer service. Their CEO @BAyonote would do well to address these if they plan to stay in business. End.
UPDATE: After my complaint to @BAyonote of @ExploreLegend, my internet speed worsened dramatically! I now get 480 Kbps, not 40 Mbps. No one has bothered to contact me to discuss my earlier complaints. Do you think they may be vexing with me? It is now downright hilarious. x.com/BAyonote/statu…
