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The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has blamed increasing network glitches on inability of operators to fix outages as a result of the curfew in Lagos.
Subscribers are currently experiencing poor connectivity as the outages persist.
Lagos state imposed curfew on Tuesday afternoon after violence escalated in the face of the EndSARS protest against police brutality. An attack on peaceful protesters on Tuesday evening at the Lekki Toll Gate allegedly by military elements further worsened the violence through out Wednesday in spite of the curfew as hoodlums took over the streets.
Lagos has extended the curfew by another 72 hours.
In an official statement, ALTON explained that operators have been unable to fix network glitches as a result of restriction on free movement.
Read ALTON full statement below.
In light of the events of the last 24 hours, we, the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), are compelled to issue this communique.
- ALTON regrets the reports of recent incidents of violence across the country. The wanton destruction of lives and properties is disheartening. As service providers and employers of labour our immediate priority is the safety of our staff across the country.
- Unfortunately, some of our member operators experienced outages on their networks on Tuesday evening, which still subsists till the moment. *None of this was intentional.
- The outages have been compounded by power and other operations-related issues that have occurred across some major routes in Lagos metropolis and other states resulting in congestion of networks and impact on quality of services.
- Further movement restrictions and the volatility on the streets has compounded the restoration of outages because engineers have not been able to move about to fix the problems.
- At the moment, affected member operators are exploiting all avenues to remedy the situation. Engineers are making relentless effort round the clock to resolve issues, while in the interim, efforts are being made to optimize coverage utilising alternative solutions as a stop-gap solution to the most impacted locations.
- We appeal to subscribers to please bear with us and be patient. Let us remember that we need both voice and data communication especially at this critical time.
- We therefore appeal to our brothers and sisters who are still at the barricades, to please grant access to our member operator engineers to be able to access the affected locations to restore telecom services.
