No one really knows the origin of this relationship, between Nigerians living in the UK and T-Mobile, (the German telecommunication network). But obviously the relationship can be traced back to the 90s when possessing a mobile phone (a newly introduced toy at the time) was generally regarded as a social and status symbol.

During this period, T-Mobile hadn’t yet taken over One 2 One in the £8.4 billion deal, the network which at the time offered different deals to customers including the popular and over-subscribed deal which offered customers unlimited free evening and weekend calls to One 2 One numbers as well as UK land lines.

It wasn’t like Nigerians sat down at a place, had a meeting and agreed to adopt T-Mobile (then One 2 One) as their choice network, the consequent choice and adoption of the network may probably have been as a result of the deals which the network offered at the time, deals which were considered to be value for money, and well worth the low monthly subscription fees, and which were also considered to be better than what the other telephone networks at the time were offering for example O2 (formerly BT Cellnet), Vodafone, Orange and Virgin.

And so most Nigerians living in the UK owned either a T-Mobile pay – as- you- go or contract SIM card. Even those who had other SIM cards and numbers from the other networks still maintained T-Mobile numbers for cheaper and more convenient reach with friends and family within the Nigerian community in the UK.

This relationship continued and thrived for a long time, Nigerians continued to make calls from their T-Mobile phones both to Nigeria and to other parts of the world, until the network felt that the relationship was now tilting more in the favour of the Nigerian customers, and they pulled the plug on Nigerian customers and started barring all calls to Nigeria from T-mobile networks.

What really went wrong?

The story (though unconfirmed by the networks when the customer services department was contacted for clarification) is that Nigerian customers were abusing the credit line offered to contract customers, as they made calls and accumulated huge bills which sometimes ran into thousands of pounds, they also wouldn’t pay the bills, it has also been suggested that some of the Nigerian customers at the time would rent out their phones to family and friends and charge them for trunk calls to Nigeria and other parts of the world, when the bills arrive, they abandon the lines and take up new phone lines and contracts. Allegedly, this practice was sustained because of the ease with which some of the Nigerian customers were able to set up new identities and bank accounts (prerequisites for obtaining the contract lines) using falsified or fake documents.

Over a long period, as this problem became incessant and began to eat deeply into the network’s profits, One 2 One/T-Mobile conducted an internal investigation which revealed Nigeria as the destination country of most of the trunk calls made from telephone lines with questionable usage patterns and unpaid accumulated bills. Obviously the warning and threat letters from the networks to the customers asking them to settle their outstanding bills were returned back to the networks as undeliverable, probably as a result of the inexistence of either such addresses or the customers at the given addresses.

As a result of the huge financial loses of this scam to the network, especially when you consider the fact that the unofficial figures of Nigerians living in the UK is currently estimated at around 2 million, as well as the percentage of this number that may have been involved in the scam, the network then had no other choice than to implement the blanket policy of baring all calls to Nigeria the One 2 One/T-Mobile network, Pakistan is another country in this category of countries with barred calls from T-Mobile’s UK network.

This policy does however seem like an extreme fraud prevention measure, one that penalises millions of other genuine Nigerian T-Mobile customers.

As a result of this policy which is still in place today, Nigerians now feel that the network is singling them out and enforcing a punitive policy against them, this they claim amounts to discrimination against a particular market segment, especially one with huge numbers and potentials. Some Nigerian customers also say that the network has not really exhibited corporate maturity in their approach to dealing with the issue; they believe that the network could have used other measures to curtail the abuse.

Despite the inconvenience which this policy is causing Nigerian customers, they still remain loyal to the network by maintaining their T-mobile numbers, this though may not be borne anymore by their love for the network, other networks including 3 now offer almost similar and sometimes better deals than T-Mobile, which seem to be losing grounds to the competition in the area of product offerings and customer rewards, an area that T-Mobile once dominated and used as a key competitive strategy.

T-Mobile’s decision to bar calls to Nigeria from its network has meant that Nigerians now carry 2 or more handsets, The T-mobile line is still used predominantly in the evenings and weekends when the network’s free unlimited calls offer kick in, other networks which are now popular amongst Nigerians are Vodafone and O2, which are used mainly to send and receive text messages to and from Nigeria.

Despite the barring of calls to Nigeria from the T-Mobile network in the UK, why is T-Mobile still the primary choice network amongst Nigerians?

Nigeria is one of the countries in the world with heavy immigrant populations, it is easy to spread the word to new arrivals on the telephone networks of choice and their various uses, and so new arrivals are easily indoctrinated into the ‘free evening and weekend calls’ philosophy, what that means for them is that if they want friends and family to easily and freely call them, then they would have to get a T-Mobile number, if they don’t then they may as well remain in their own ‘island’ or ‘world’, without much contacts to other Nigerians, and therefore with limited access to information that may help them with jobs and in ‘settling in’.

But considering the rising competition in the UK telecommunication market, as well as the evolving of stricter ways of conducting credit checks, it may be better for T-Mobile to review its Nigerian policy and open their network to Nigerian calls once again.

Agreed, there have been issues in the past but they can not continue to ignore this huge market segment, which their competitors are actively exploiting, especially now that there are new technologies they can deplore to detect and check customer call excesses.

If T-Mobile opens their network to Nigerian calls, they would be fulfilling the desires of their customers, a key factor in strategic customer service which T-Mobile claim that their business and success is hinged and built upon.

Should this call barring continue, Nigerian T-Mobile customers in the UK may consider constituting themselves into a strong consumer advocacy group and take their case to the UK Competition Commission or the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to challenge this discriminatory policy from the telecom giant, an early and amicable solution from the network is more desirable to a class action suit situation which may be costly for the network, and may also impact negatively on their brand image and values.

Uche Nworah is a T-Mobile customer and also a branding and advertising lecturer at the London Metropolitan University. [email protected]