Network problems impact Cell C customers
MTN has addressed an issue on “point of interconnect links” between its network and Cell C’s that caused call connection problems from MTN to Cell C subscribers.
The problem was reported by MyBroadband member and blogger, Saajid Ismail, who documented his struggle with dead calls and “crossed lines” on calls made from MTN to Cell C on his site, distilling his experience to five symptoms.
These can be summarised as two general cases, the first of which is a call from MTN to Cell C that connects, but for which no sound can be heard on either the MTN side, Cell C side, or both.
The second, and more troubling case, was when the call connected and either the MTN side or Cell C side are patched into a call in progress.
Sometimes the people in the other call can hear the newcomer, but Ismail said that sometimes you could eavesdrop without the other parties knowing you were there.
In his post, Ismail said that he contacted Cell C about the problem but received no feedback from them. After escalating the issue to MTN’s chief technology officer, Kanagaratnam Lambotharan, Ismail reported that the yellow network resolved the problem speedily.
Isolated, no failure on MTN’s part
Kanagaratnam Lambotharan
Asked for MTN’s take on the issue, the company responded with a statement from Lambotharan:
MTN continually invests in network infrastructure to ensure an enhanced telephony experience for its customers. The technology upgrade projects which MTN undertakes annually across the country, involve an aggressive re-design and re-architecting of the network and are sometimes implemented with other carriers. This is done to optimise assets and continually improve network quality. Some customers may have encountered the challenge due to work carried out to modernise the core network and migrating the Point of Interconnect links (POILs) between MTN and Cell C that impacted on one specific link.
Lambotharan said that since only one link was impacted, the case was isolated and the faulty link summarily blocked to resolve the complaint before rectifying the issue and subsequently putting the link back into service.
MTN then administered a full investigation and can confirm there was no failure on its part, Lambotharan said.
Proper reporting procedure
Asked about the support they provided on this issue, Cell C admitted that they the dropped the ball on this particular case.
“The poor response time and lack of feedback was unacceptable and we have since been in contact with the customer to apologise for the poor service and to agree on a way forward,” a Cell C spokesperson told MyBroadband. “We have also implemented corrective measures to ensure that this does not happen again.”
Cell C said that Ismail followed exactly the right procedure to report a complex problem such as this one where a network other than your own is involved.
In this instance, however, the employee assigned to deal with the matter did not follow through until the matter was resolved, Cell C said.
Cell C went on to outline how users should report issues of this nature:
The customer should raise the issue with his or her current network provider. It is the responsibility of the network provider to investigate the matter and if necessary take it further with the customer’s previous/former network provider.
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