TO THE CEO OF VODAFONE GHANA TELECOM: STOP THE GT BROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS RIP-OFF NOW!

Sir, since I have come to the end of my tether, I will leave out the niceties – and go straight to the point. When your company, Vodafone, took over Ghana Telecom (GT), we were told (by the masters of the universe then in charge of Ghana) that it would lead to an improvement in the company’s performance and benefit its customers.

Unfortunately, speaking as one of your ”Broadband4U” customers living at McCarthy Hill (who were served by the now-defunct Alvarion wireless system), I can confirm from personal experience that far from bringing me any benefits, the change in the ownership structure of GT, has been nothing short of disastrous.

Why should any customer of yours say such a negative thing, you might wonder? Well, sometime towards the end of last year, I was telephoned by one of your technicians, a Mr. Agbeko Mensah (who led the two-man team that originally installed my now-defunct Alvarion broadband wireless set-up when I signed up for the “Broadband4U” service), to inform me that someone would be bringing me a new phone the following day.

In the event a lady and a gentleman called with a “Telular” brand smartfone. Apart from a vague statement that at some point in the future someone from GT would bring me a new antennae to replace the old Alvarion one (as part of an upgrade of the system), nothing whatsoever was said about the fact that the Alvarion wireless broadband system was actually about to be shut down, by that gentleman and the lady who brought me the smartfone.

It is amazing to now discover (the implications of GT’s continuing deafening silence on the subject having finally sunk in), that incredibly, at the time of the shutdown of the Alvarion system, Vodafone had actually not made any real alternative arrangements to ensure that those affected by the closure would continue having the same quality of broadband internet access. I am still reeling from the disastrous financial consequences of the sudden shutdown of that system.

After endless telephone calls that got me absolutely nowhere (as I struggled in vain to get some sense out of the many inscrutable “bright-sparks” who work for your customer call-centres on your 100, 101 and 110 telephone help-lines), I finally went to your Dansoman “Care-for-you centre” – where, to cut a long story short, I was given a USB device and port cable: and informed that Vodafone GT was giving all its Alvarion customers free GHC60 worth of browsing time for the inconvenience caused us.

Needless to say, I was none the wiser as to exactly when the replacement for the old Alvarion system would be coming on stream, even after that visit. Alas, although the manager there was a brilliant diplomat (and was as good at his job as any of his counterparts in your UK operation), sadly, it appears that in systemic terms nothing much seems to have changed in that area of GT’s company culture too!

Sir, at a time when the world faces a recession, my survival in this worldwide economic crisis is predicated upon benefiting from outsourcing opportunities created as a result of small regional newspapers in the Anglo-Saxon world changing their business models so as to stay in business during a severe economic downturn.

An example of this trend is the Californian newspaper “Pasadena Now” - which in order to continue staying in business has had to discontinue its print edition and become an online news outlet exclusively.

It sacked its entire staff of journalists (paid on average about US$800 per week) and outsourced their work to an Indian outsourcing firm in Bangalore - which charges them around seven dollars fifty cents per thousand words to write for the paper’s online edition: guided by the US-based editorial team. As advertising revenue dries up in the period of a severe recession, many such newspapers will have to adopt the same exclusive online business model or perish.

Having a reliable broadband ISP will be a key factor for the success of English-speaking writers’ worldwide, setting up online cooperatives with their fellow writers, with a view to leveraging this burgeoning new outsourcing industry, to service such exclusive internet news outlets in the Anglo Saxon world. Surely, that represents a potential new market opportunity for GT too, does it not, Sir?

That is why I am so outraged that your company (which in the view of many ordinary Ghanaians took over a prime national asset built with the blood, sweat and tears of ordinary Ghanaian workers for a song) has fobbed me off with a virtually useless dial-up system to access the internet – branded “Vodafone Connect” – without anyone from GT giving me any advance warning of this disaster whatsoever.

That lousy product does anything but actually connect one to the internet in a manner comparable to the GT Alvarion wireless “Broadband4U” internet access service I used to have – and on the few occasions when one succeeds in getting online for a few minutes, one is suddenly disconnected: and the whole confounded rigmarole has to be repeated all over again.

This effectively has meant that one has literally spent entire days when one has ended up only being able to write just a few paragraphs. What financially-challenged Ghanaian writer with any ambition can possibly set up an online outsourcing service and succeed – if he or she is hampered by ICT rubbish such as “Vodafone Connect” serving as the backbone of their online activities, I ask?

The question an ICT ignoramus like me, whose survival more or less depends on having a reliable broadband ISP, would like answered, is: are we to conclude (if the bush telegraph is to be believed, i.e.) that Vodafone more or less deliberately designed the disastrous “Vodafone Connect” so that its customers would have to try to access the internet many times over each time they attempted to go online – and perhaps be charged by stealth on every occasion that that happens?

As we speak, I have been disconnected – since 7th January, 2009: when I received an SMS from GT (whiles enduring yet another bout of frantic attempts to continue working online in the face of constantly going offline every few minutes). It coolly informed me that I did not have sufficient credit to access the internet.

How can that be: when all I have done since getting the confounded thing has been to spend virtually all my browsing time trying to be reconnected to the web each time I am suddenly disconnected whiles trying to work online?

The claim that I have run out of credit is simply scandalous – as I do know for a fact that I had credit of precisely GHc69 in my suspended “Broadband4U” account at the time it was shut down (broadband4U account number: 207888 – with telephone number 021 276238: that was later inexplicably changed to 021 976238 when that smartfone was brought to me, for some extraordinary reason).

Why, is one to assume that “Vodafone Connect” is dangerous to one’s financial well-being – and far more expensive than your “Broadband4U”service, which by all standards (and speaking as someone who has had personal experience of both products) is definitely a superior product that also costs a relatively modest GHc60 for a whole month’s worth of browsing time?

If you care to check your records you will find that I always made sure that I had sufficient credit (for an extra month’s browsing) in that particular pre-paid account. I am incensed at the cavalier way your company has handled the issue of replacing its wireless Alvarion broadband internet service – and the insensitive manner customers such as myself have been treated thus far.

How can someone who signed up for a “Broadband4U” service suddenly end up being fobbed off with a lousy dial-up service – that apparently costs about a zillion times more than the better broadband product it replaced (which is probably why my complimentary GHc60 credit has suddenly been gobbled up by only a few hours worth of browsing time)?

Sir, may I point it out to you that what is even more unacceptable about all this is that to add insult to injury, to date, no one from GT, has so far spelt out to me just what exactly are the rates for this travesty (which is supposed to pass for a major Western multinational’s customer-friendly broadband internet service in a developing country), although the rates for the “Broadband4U” are clearly spelt out in your sales literature?

Do you think that any of your customers in the UK and the EU (in parts of both of which telecoms companies even offer free broadband internet access to attract customers to their fixed-line telephone services) would tolerate such a situation if they had to pay as much as US$60 per month to get broadband internet access – which is what I was effectively paying GT for my Alvarion broadband internet access?

Would many of your EU and UK competitors, such as BT and Virgin, not move heaven and earth to have access to a market in which they could charge broadband customers as much as US$60 per month – as a stand-alone product?

Furthermore, if it was the case that I happened to be a Vodafone wireless broadband internet customer living in the Outer Hebrides, for example, would you have dared to treat me so shabbily in the process of migrating from a wireless broadband service to presumably some new and better replacement broadband product?

So why should one not believe the cynics – who say that your company is simply engaging in what amounts to a monstrous rip-off in a poor developing nation? Sir, are you not aware of the fact that the general sentiment amongst most discerning and honest folk in this country is that your company succeeded in buying a very valuable national asset of our country for a song?

Well, the fact of the matter is that many such Ghanaians also agree with the cynics amongst us: who express their ire at your presence here by pointing out the fact that the crooks amongst our previous rulers (who sold you your stake in GT) even got parliament to pass a law indemnifying all those who cooked up what they describe as a “shabby deal” from any future criminal prosecution – arising out of all issues to do with what in their view was an opaque and most egregious privatization transaction.

In the light of all of the above, one would have thought that having secured such a bargain (and legal indemnities to boot), Vodafone would be satisfied. Yet, alas, to top all that, it would appear that your company also has the barefaced cheek to also try and rip off silly old fools like the Kofi Thompsons of this world: a writer who needs an efficient broadband internet service provider to survive this global recession – and who, as it happens, was also amongst those who opposed that one-sided deal, for patriotic reasons.

Well, surprising though it might be to Vodafone, in this particular instance it has unfortunately picked on the wrong fool in Ghana to try and rip off – for, even though I am an insignificant individual, I have no intention of letting your company get away with this outrage.

I demand that Vodafone lets the entirety of its now-defunct Alvarion wireless “Broadband4U” internet customers know precisely when it will replace that product with a more modern and reliable broadband internet service – that hopefully will be even better than the old Alvarion wireless system was.

Finally, I also demand that to assuage my feelings and compensate me sufficiently for the tremendous harm done me in disrupting my online activities, Vodafone lets me browse free of charge for the rest of the year (or until you sort out this confounded wireless broadband mess that has effectively left your company’s old Alvarion wireless broadband customers high and dry).

After all, GT did allow some of the previous regime’s “guard-dogs” in the media (those shameless New Patriotic Party (NPP) media praise-singers whose consciences were bought by our secret services) to have free broadband internet access during the tenure of the previous NPP regime, did it not?

In the meantime, whiles your company organizes that compensation for me, I insist that GT immediately transfers the GHc69 in my suspended “Broadband4U” account number 207888 to pay for this lousy Vodafone Connect service – so that I can continue the torturous business of trying to get and stay online.

One certainly hopes that Vodafone will not be as arrogant as to elect to ignore this missive, just as your impervious company has ignored innumerable complaints of mine made to your various telephone help-lines – ever since the Alvarion system was shut down.

I am absolutely sure that the feelings of outrage expressed by me here, are sentiments shared by virtually every single Vodafone GT “Broadband4U” customer who used to be served by the old Alvarion wireless system: and now no longer have reliable access to the internet – because your company has deemed it fit to lumber them with “Vodafone Connect”: a virtually useless dial-up service.

Sir, whatever you do, please make sure that your employees resolve this matter promptly. A word to the wise…

May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom1 Long live Ghana!