‘DATA MUST FALL’

BEING a ‘fallist’ seems to be trendy and woke as being a ‘fallist’ is a burning symbol of challenging the status quo.

Everything seems to be falling this side of the 21st century and when South African radio DJ Tbo Touch championed a campaign called ‘data must fall’ late last year, I first assumed he was vying for attention but as the campaign gained traction and attention, I understood and fully supported it. During this campaign, data costs in different countries were compared: E149 in South Africa gets you a 1G(1000MB), in Swaziland it only gets you 300MB (1G here is E314) meanwhile 1G in Nigeria costs R22 and R32 in Namibia. Sure the last countries have a bigger market and developed infrastructure, but still.

It’s no lie that Swaziland has the highest data prices in the region. Our service provider seems to reap joy from its customers. It’s shocking just how speedily data bundles are depleted. Maybe, due to the fact that they have monopolised the space, they see no need to try develop their product offers or create beneficial offerings that will enable cheaper means of communicating. It’s this lack of competition that has made the service provider a corporate machinery focused on churning out unimaginative ads, high call rates and frankly, poor service.

I think that’s the worst dynamic of the whole situation, at least if the service they provided was impeccable and efficient, but dololo. Instead, there are still inexplicable network issues, repentantly unhelpful call centre agents and dumbing down our smartphones in order to avoid random airtime losses (I know this personally).
This may seem like a complete smear of the service provider but as a customer we all have the right to complain about a service that our money is going to.
I am well aware of the sponsorships and other social responsibility programmes the company undertakes, that is great but I’m sure every company has a corporate social responsibility mandate, right? We cannot invalidate the amount of lives the company may have changed through various initiatives or sponsorships, but this is solely about the trash service.
We can only wonder what it means now that another company has been granted a licence to provide another cellular network. Not only will that be job creation, but the competition will be good.

We only pray for quality service. It’s about time somnolent Swaziland abandoned the stifling monopolisation of spaces; diversification of industries may prove the best thing for our fledgling and inchoate economy.
Improved telecommunications structures also influence many investors’ decisions. So in some form or another; the State, cost, efficiency and reliability of a country’s internet/data is considered when investors are looking to invest.

Mainly because the rest of the world has gone digital, the ease of data and internet is key in business. So it’s not even about the ridiculous costs, it’s just the quality of service that grates many. As previously mentioned, the high costs do not match with the service received.
With the new threats entering the space, as a cellular service provider and a brand, it’s time to build customer loyalty.

The loyalty they enjoy now is unstable as this is solely based on the fact that they’re the only provider – there’s no other option. How they build this loyalty is up to them.

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