Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja
Member of House of Representatives, representing, Akoko-Edo federal constituency of Edo State, Hon. Peter Akpatason, has stated that the belief by many Nigerians that they suffer data depletions is a misconception as MTN Nigeria has shown, subscribers actually consume every data they buy.
He stated this on Monday night in Abuja at the “Data on Trial” event organised by MTN Nigeria to show consumers that knowingly or unknowingly, they actually consume every data they have paid for.
Hon. Akpatason said the misconceptions by many people on data depletion has ended today because of what MTN has shown.
“We saw a whole lot of misconceptions that people had about data getting eroded when they didn’t use it, only to find out that they had missed certain protective measures for such data. So, behind the background, the data that was used up,”
Speaking further he said, “it’s an opportunity for the people to understand exactly how their data is managed and some of the things that they need to do to ensure that they don’t expose their data to, what I call poor management that will result in losing data, probably because of the way that it has been managed.
“It also was an opportunity to clear the air on so many misconceptions in the country about data management. Particularly, for instance, they spoke about the pricing of data and a lot of people believe that data is priced higher in Nigeria than all other African countries, including everywhere in the world, but at the end of the day it was proven that is not the case.”
*So, it was an opportunity for people to understand it better and I quite appreciate it.” he added
On investments by service providers in the sector he said, “there is a lot of investments in this sector; appart from the oil sector, I think telecoms is the next in this country. And there is room for more investment and I will advise our people to continue to invest in the industry.”
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, in his opening speech said, “we have heard our customers in terms of their discomfort in their perception of disappearing data, how their data is consumed, and how we explain this to them. And so, “Data on Trial” event Team and MTN had the brainwave of actually putting ourselves on trial.
“And one thing I will give the Data on Trial event team and MTN credit for is the courage to stand up, to be interrogated, to be vulnerable, and to listen to customers.
“This process is about building trust, it’s about building knowledge, and it’s about building transparency about what goes on in our industry and the life critical services that we provide to our consumers. he emphasised
General Manager of Network Performance and Quality Assurance, MTN Nigeria, Michael Ndukwe, with other members of the team explained that factors such as phone model, resolution, X, tik tok, and location are responsible for high or low data consumption.