Figure 1. Architecture of a Base Station
The evolution and growth of the telecommunications industry over the past four decades has been responsible for the tremendous changes in the technology of human communication. Now telecommunication architecture had moved from complex to simple making many people to have access to mobile devices. People expect to move around easily with their mobile devices, keeping close communications with their partners, friends and family without worrying about Data and Voice Issues. This paper is to investigate the data and voice issues among the telecommunication companies operating in the Upper East region of Ghana. Issues concerning call drop, call congestion and internet connectivity among network operators have been investigated and analyzed. General rating of the various telecos operating in the region is also presented in this paper.A test to ascertain whether subscribers will change their network provider if the network is persistently bad has also been presented.
Telecommunication in Ghana has experienced a fourphase evolution, from the pre-colonial era to the under English colonial rule after which we had the post-colonial era to the present era. Throughout this process, Telecommunication architecture had moved from complex to simple. (Wikipedia.org, 2014).
The sense that the world is in the middle of a continuing telecommunication revolution has been strong since the 1960s when the television became one of the widely used media of communication. This period in history marked the realization that the world was becoming a global village(Salami A., 2008).
The evolution and growth of the telecommunications industry over the past four decades has been responsible for the tremendous changes in the technology of human communication. Information and communication technologies currently pervade every facet of human existence; from community radios in almost all parts of the globe, to cellular phones in the hands of women and men in every community on earth, to computers in almost every medium to large organization(Melhem S., 2009).
The evolution process is naturally driven by the technological advancement in hardware, software and the internet. In the 1990s, communication centers came into vogue to expand the frontiers of telecommunication. Smart entrepreneurs contracted kiosks or hired shops to establish centers which became one of the most vibrant businesses in the country.
It was a privilege to own a mobile phone when it was introduced in the 1990s by Millicom under the operator name, Mobitel with handsets nicknamed as 'timber'.
The state operator at the time, Ghana Telecom (GT) was restricted to landline operation. It was not allowed to operate mobile phone services until Spacefon which metamorphosed into areeba becoming MTN, entered the market.
In 1997, the process of deregulation of the telecom sector began and GT received the license to operate the one touch mobile service. It was during these times that SIM card, which now sells at Ghc1, went for GHc20 with people queuing for days to purchase a SIM card.
The expansion of the economy opened the sector with the entry of Celtel now Expresso, Zain now Airtel, Tigo and Glo. (http//www.Ghanaweb.com, 2013).
People expect to move around easily with their mobile devices, keeping close communications with their partners, friends and family without worrying about Data and Voice issues.
All these put the requirement on Telecommunication companies in the country to go the extra mile and provide subscribers with quality service.
Good customer service is an expectation held by the customer regarding the manner in which they are treated by anyone representing the company.
(Dogbe, 2011) stated that Consumers want and expect to be addressed in a respectful and professional manner when dealing with any situation, problem, complaint, question or assistance that may arise pertaining to any aspect of their business relationship.
A negative customer service experience often leads to a dissatisfied or disgruntled customer; and an unhappy customer can tarnish the name and reputation of a company by generating negative feedback.
I believe that there are several commonalities in future telecommunication architecture, such as uninterrupted communication services, boosting of Intelligent Network Services (INS), provision of faster Internet Services and increasing Value Added Services (VAS) to subscribers.
There are a lot of telecommunication companies operating in the upper east region with a lot of customers having the headache to choose which one suits them with regard to data and voice. This is because there are a lot of data and voice issues associated with these telecommunication companies.
Some of these issues are
The main objective of this study is to find out and compare data and voice issues among telecommunication companies in the Upper East region. The specified objectives for this study are to find out
This paper will also ascertain whether subscribers will change their network operator if they continue to get data and voice issues. We therefore generated a hypothesis as follows
H1 : Likelihood that subscribers would change their network when the reception is always bad
H0 : Likelihood that subscribers would not change their network when the reception is always bad.
This section is devoted to the relevant literature on the views required to connect to the research objectives on data and voice issues among telecommunication companies in the Upper East region of Ghana.
As a matter of fact, telecommunication companies in the country deal in goods and services and for that matter, serve their customers known as subscribers. When a customer is satisfied, business goes on smoothly without any intimidation and prevents them from jockeying from one goods and services provider to another, but remain loyal to the service provider.
According to(www.dictionary.reference.com, 2011), a customer is a person who purchases goods or services from another: buyer; patron; or a person one has to deal with.
(Rust, 2000) opined that the term ‟customer‟ is commonly used to refer to the end-users of a product. A customer refers to individuals or households that purchase goods and services generated within the economy.(Smith, 1997)indicated that historically, the word customer is derived from "custom," meaning "habit"; a customer was someone who frequented a particular shop, who made it a habit to purchase goods there, and with whom the shopkeeper had to maintain a relationship to keep his or her "custom," meaning expected purchases in the future.
(Hayes, 1997) revealed that customer is a generic term referring to anybody who receives a service or product from some other person or group of people. Customer needs may be defined as the goods or services a customer requires to achieve specific goals. Different needs are of varying importance to the customer. Customer expectations are influenced by cultural values, advertising, marketing, and other communications, both with the supplier and with other sources.
(Berkman, 1986) stated that customer satisfaction is recognized as being of great importance to all commercial organizations because of its influence on repeat purchase behavior and word-of-mouth recommendations. In general terms, customer satisfaction is seen as the essential determinant of business success. On the other hand, as competition has increased, customer satisfaction has been identified as a determinant of market share, return on investment and cost reduction (Burch, 1995).
It costs about five times as much in time, money and resources, to attract a new customer as it does to retain an existing customer. This creates the challenge of maintaining high levels of service, awareness of customer expectations and improvement in services and products. Satisfaction reinforces positive attitudes toward the product/service, leading to a greater likelihood that the same product/service will be purchased again and that dissatisfaction leads to negative product/service attitudes and lessens the likelihood of using the same product/service again. (Dogbe, 2011).
The state of customer satisfaction with service delivery is not clear as there is scanty documentation of the issue. According to a discussion paper on telecom developments and investments in Ghana(Frempong G., 2004), the authors noted that “the goals set by government have only partly been met – especially with respect to the development in rural areas – and the quality of service is still low and has even deteriorated on some indicators. There is, therefore, a widespread dissatisfaction with the general telecom development in Ghana among users as well as policy decision makers and administrators.”
However, the industry has witnessed tremendous developments in the last decade as a result of the substantial growth in investment that has generated incredible increase in subscriber growth rate for all the mobile telecom operators in the industry by December 2007 (ITU, 2008). This seems to be a success story, and there are high hopes that the service quality delivered by telecommunication companies in Ghana meets customer expectations or satisfaction.
Communication is simply the act of transferring information from one place to another. In telecommunication, we have just two types of communication, verbal communication (Voice) i.e. speaking over the telephone and the written type (Data) via the internet. (Wikipedia.org, 2014).
Telecommunication refers to specific services that support the exchange of information over significant distances by electronic means. It includes the activities of providing telecommunications and related service activities (i.e. transmitting voice, data, text, sound and video). The transmission facilities that carry out these activities may be based on a single technology or a combination of technologies (International Telecommunication Union, 2010).
Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. It involves the sending of magnetic waves by electronic transmitters which had replaced the use of smoke signals, and drums which were used earlier. Today telecommunication is widespread and devices that assist the process such as telephones are very common(http//www.answers.yahoo. com, 2014).
The term telecommunications was first used for wired telephony. Today, telecommunications are one of the most important of the contemporary ICTs. They include wired and wireless telephony; different mobile services, such as cellular telephones and paging; voice and data transmission; and Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN), which provide a very high quality of voice as well as high data communication rates.
The Telecommunication industry has gone through some significant and revolutionary changes in the past two decades. The industry used to be regarded as a natural monopoly before 1980s. In telecommunications industry, this was mainly due to the exceptionally large infrastructure requirements of delivering the telephone services right into households. The monopolistic nature of the industry also meant that the provider could charge excessive prices and gain monopoly profits. Therefore, the need for price regulation also became apparent. It thus became commonplace, all over the world, to have a monopoly company owned by the state for providing telecommunication services(Bandaranayake, 2005).
Due to the problems in state owned enterprises, an essential need was seen to reform them. A combination of restructuring, privatization and establishing regulatory mechanisms were adopted in reforming these public enterprises (Kessides, 2004). The restructuring started in US in 1980s where the monopolist AT&T was dismantled into a number of smaller companies. Competition was introduced into long distance communications and then to local communications. Furthermore, companies were allowed to operate in both broadcast and communications markets simultaneously. The next country to follow was UK with the opening up of their market which was the monopoly of British Telecom. Many countries in the European Union thereafter followed suit(Bressie, 2005).
Globally, the Telecommunication industry has become a vital revenue generation sector. For instance, at the end of 2008, worldwide mobile service revenues stood at USD 912.1 billion; outperforming the respective revenues generated by the pharmaceutical, IT hardware and semiconductor sectors. While software and services generated more revenue than mobile services, mobile surpassed this sector in terms of year-on-year growth, and was the only industry of the aforementioned five to register double digit growth of 17.4 percent in terms of overall revenue between 2007 and 2008. It is estimated that by the end of 2008, worldwide mobile subscribers will total 4.6 billion (International Telecommunication Union, 2010).
(Allotey W., 2000), traced the history of telecommunication in Ghana to the pre-colonial period when the first telegraph line in Ghana, (then the Gold Coast), was a ten mile link installed in 1881 between the castle of the colony's, then governor in Cape Coast and Elmina. In 1882, the first public telegraphs line, stretching over a distance of 2.5 miles, was erected between Christianborg and Accra. The extension of telegraph services to the middle and northern parts of Ghana into the territory of the Ashantis was carried out in 1886. In order to improve communications in the southern part of the country, the first manual telephone exchange (70 lines) was installed in Accra in 1892. Twelve years later, in 1904, a second manual exchange consisting of 13 lines was installed in Cape Coast.
Ghana's telecommunication infrastructure was laid down and expanded by the colonial administration mainly to facilitate the economic, social, and political administration of the colony. Before the beginning of World War I in 1914, 170 telephone subscribers had been served in Ghana. By 1930, the number of telephone exchange lines in Ghana had grown to 1,560, linking the coastal region with the central and northern parts of the country. In 1953, the first automatic telephone exchange with 200 lines was installed in Accra to replace the manual one erected 63 years earlier. Three years later, in 1956, the trunk lines connecting Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, and Tamale were upgraded through the installation of a 48- and 12-channel VHF (Very High Frequency) network.
The attainment of independence by Ghana in 1957 brought new dynamism to the country's telecommunications development as a second new automatic exchange in Accra in 19 57. By the end of 1963, over 16,000 telephone subscribers and 32,000 rotary-type telephones were in use in Ghana. The management of Ghana's telecommunication institutions was also transferred from Public Works Department to the post office following the enactment of the Post Office Ordinance in 1886 and later to the Post and Telecommunications Department until the early 1970s.
Satellite communication was not an integral part of the Ghanaian communications system until the early 1980s. The construction of a satellite earth station at Kuntunase in the Eastern region of Ghana in 1981, and related communication reforms of the early 1990s marked a dramatic shift towards greater use of satellite communications technology over the next two decades (Boateng, 2000).
According to (Osiakwan, 2003), Ghana was one of the African countries, who in the late 1990's, were in the forefront of the liberalization of the telecommunications sector to attract investments and improve competition within the communication sector. The communications sector was deregulated in 1994 when the government initiated the implementation of the Accelerated Development Programme (ADP) -- a five year programme for the restructuring of the communication industry. The ADP Programme ended in 2000 with the following achievements: teledensity increasing from 0.34 lines for 1000 inhabitants in 1994 to 1.16 lines in 2000; public phones per 1000 inhabitants increasing from 0.001 in 1994 to 0.16 in 2000; creation of the National Communications Authority (NCA) in 1996; liberalization of the communication sector; and the partial privatization of Ghana Telecom with Government maintaining 70% share. These were achieved primarily through the entrance of new telecommunication companies following the deregulation and privatization of the sector.
According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Ghana's current mobile penetration rate is at an estimated 112%, after the country hit 100% mark at the end of 2012. These numbers are the highest in Africa, placing Ghana at 49th in the world.
This always-on, always connected era that we find ourselves in, holds new promises for what technology can bring to people's lives and businesses. This gives us the opportunity to use our technology to help create sustainable growth in the country.
This is an exciting time when the country is rapidly transforming, both economically and socially.
Data from the National Communications Authority ending August 2008, indicated that out of a total of 10,242,916 mobile phone subscribers in the country, MTN has 5,539,065, representing 52 per cent of the market; TiGO following half way with 2,668,316 subscribers; followed by GT/Vodafone with 1,648,544 subscribers; whiles Kasapa trails far behind with about 386,991 subscribers.
The base station is the critical component of a cellular network technically, economically, and oddly enough, aesthetically as well. In system terms, we can define the base station by its two interfaces: a non-cellular pipe back to the Mobile Switching Center (MSC) and Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and an air-interface link using the system's cellular standard Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS), Global System for Mobility (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)] to the user terminals operating within the cell. On the air interface, the base station transmits the forward (downlink) radio signal and receives the reverse (uplink). As an engineering component, the base station is a unique technology that creates the cellular structure. Of course, every component of the cellular system has a crucial function, but base stations, due to their combination of telephony and radio components, are more specialized, for example, MSCs, which are largely telephone switches adapted to cells. The engineering of the base station as a whole determines the reliability of the cell, and the engineering and management of the air interface are the most critical components in optimizing cell capacity and quality.
Economically, base stations are expensive to build, and a cellular system needs a lot of them. Also, due to their remote locations, they are often expensive to repair as well.
Aesthetically, they are considered a nuisance in most neighborhoods, and this constrains their height and location and adds considerably to their cost(McGraw- Hill, 2004). Figure 1 shows the Architecture of a Base Station.
Figure 1. Architecture of a Base Station
Starting at the top, a wireless base station has a set of radio antennas. Typically, there are three antennas per sector, one to transmit the forward signal and two to receive the reverse signal. The two receiving antennas provide microscopic spatial diversity to combat Rayleigh fading. At wireless frequencies, half a meter of spacing is enough. (McGraw-Hill, 2004).
Antenna gain is essential for microwave communication - since it helps both transmitting and receiving, it is doubly valuable. Practical microwave antennas provide high gain within the range of amateur fabrication skills and budgets.
Three types of microwave antennas meet these criteria: horns, lenses, and dishes. Horns are simple, foolproof, and easy to build; a 10 GHz horn with 17 dB of gain fits in the palm of a hand. Metal-plate lenses are easy to build, light in weight, and non-critical to adjust. Finally, dishes can provide extremely high gain; a 2-foot dish at 10GHzh as more than 30 dB of gain, and much larger dishes are available. These high gains are only achievable if the antennas are properly implemented (Wade, 1998).
Telecommunication towers are used for varied applications in different sectors such as mobile, internet, navigation, television, and radio signal transmissions. Some of the other examples of telecommunication towers include TV, MW, Power transmission, and flood light towers (http://www.indiamart.com, 2014)
Type of Telecommunication Towers:
Towers for Roof top Application.(RFT)
Towers for Ground Base application. (GBT)
Triangular Tower
Square Tower
Tubular tower
Angular tower
The height of the tower is very essential for the performance of the base-station. High towers have wider coverage, but they are more expensive, and they receive the most resistance from neighbors.
There are also a variety of techniques for making towers less obtrusive, including locating them on the tops of buildings and disguising them as trees or parking lot lighting poles. Antennas are placed on platforms at any height from the base to the top of the tower so that if an antenna needs to be lowered later, the tower is not cut shorter.
Power amplifiers take as input, a low-level modulated radio signal and produces as output, a high-level power for a transmitting antenna. An amplifier has to deliver enough power over time.
Power supply to telecommunication infrastructure is the main utility provider while diesel fuel generators are used for backups. The following are also taken into consideration
Is the site indoor or outdoor?
In which region is the site?
Is the location urban or rural?(http://www.indiamart.com, 2014)
Each piece of equipment in a base station uses electrical power. It is important to add up all the power consumption figures and build ample power supply. If the current demand of the base-station equipment exceeds the power-supply capability, the voltage can drop, and the radio equipment can perform poorly or can fail altogether.
The base station must be protected from the weather by a small building or large cabinet, and it also may need climate control to operate in cold or warm conditions. Air conditioning in a hot climate is important because the base station will cease to provide service if it overheats.
The wireless subscribers expect their telephones to work, even when the power mains do not work. (McGraw-Hill, 2004)
We often expand coverage of a cell by using a higher base station tower, but sometimes there is a particular region that is hard to reach. Other times, there is a particular community of interest, a lot of wireless telephone demand in a small space. We can deal with these issues locally using microcells, macrocells, picocells, and repeaters.
Microcells are used in densely populated urban areas and over a smaller cellarea.
Picocells are small cellular base stations covering a small area, such as in- buildings (offices, shopping centers, train stations) or in-aircraft. In cellular networks, picocells are mostly used to extend coverage to indoor areas where outdoor signals do not reach well, or to add network capacity in areas with very dense phone usage.
Macrocells describe the widest range of cell sizes in a mobile phone network and are mostly found in rural areas or along highways.
Repeaters are fixed powered devices designed to wirelessly regenerate or replicate a mobile signal. Its function is to extend coverage into areas where mobile phone coverage may not exist or is too low in power to use due to local conditions (such as the underground floors of a building parking area). Repeaters are designed to communicate with multiple mobile stations by means of radio frequency energy(Rosu, 2012). Figure 2 Depicts the Mobile Phone call connection.
Figure 2. Depicting Mobile Phone Call Connection
The BSC controls a major part of the radio network. Its most important task is to ensure the highest possible utilization of the radio resources and the main functional areas are:
Maintenance Handling of MS connections
The Base Station is responsible for all the radio network related functions in the system, such as
The national communications authority released the Quality of Service findings for the second quarter, 2013. For the second quarter, the towns used in the assessment were Accra, Tema, Tamale, Yendi, Wa, Jirapa, Nandom, Bolgatanga, Bawku, AflaoDenu, Anloga, Keta, Ho, Hohoe, Kpando, Jasikan, Asamankese, AkimOda, Akosombo, Suhum, Koforidua, Swedru, Winneba, Cape Coast, Elmina, Takoradi and Tarkwa.
The report which is an update of findings on Quality of service in June 2013 as part of the Authority's quarterly monitoring, measures
These QoS indicators and their respective threshold for compliance are assessed as part of the Cellular Mobile license obligations.
SDCCH Congestion is defined as the probability of failure of accessing a stand-alone dedicated control channel during call set up. SDCCH Congestion Rate should be equal or less than one per cent (1%). Only Vodafone and Tigo complied with their signaling congestion obligation at all localities tested in Central and Western regions in June 2013.
Call Setup Time is the period of time elapsing from the sending of a complete destination address (target telephone number) to the setting up of a call to the receiving terminal. CST should be less than ten seconds (<10secs) in 95% of cases. In the period during review, Vodafone and Tigo again satisfied their Call Setup Time obligations in Western region.
Call Congestion Rate is the probability of failure of accessing a traffic channel during call setup and the Traffic Channel Congestion should be equal or less than one per cent (1%).
The networks which satisfied their call congestion obligation at all locations that were tested in Central and Western Regions during June 2013 were MTN, Vodafone and Glo.
Voice Call Drop Rate is the probability of a call terminating without any of the users' will and should be equal to or less than three percent (3%). It should be noted that all operators except for Expresso were in compliance with the Call Drop license obligation of less than three percent (3%) in all localities tested during the second quarter. Expresso failed on the Call Drop obligation at Anloga during May 2013.
The NCA has notified Operators of publication of these findings and sanctioned operators concerning measurement performed in June. Some of the sanctions included
MTN was sanctioned GH₵100, 000.00 for defaulting Call Setup Time obligation in Central and Western Regions.
Tigo was sanctioned GH₵50, 000.00 for defaulting Call Congestion obligation in Central Region.
Glo was sanctioned GH₵200,000.00 for defaulting Call Setup Time, Call Completion and Signaling Congestion obligations in Central and Western Regions.
Airtel was sanctioned GH₵100, 000.00 for defaulting Call Congestion and Call Setup in Central and Western Regions respectively.
Expresso was sanctioned to build sites in Kasoa in Central region and Essikado in Western region for defaulting Call Congestion in both Central and Western Regions.
Vodafone remained compliant to all the license obligations in the month of June.
(Rajkumar, 2014) who researched on performance issues of cellular networks cited these issues as causes of connection issues and gave some solutions to them.
When the number of channels per cell is small, base station congestion is very likely to occur. Increasing the number of channels to solve this problem could be a problem since the bandwidth allocated for uplink and downlink transmission is fixed. Therefore, increasing the channel number per cell would cause the channel frequencies used in a cell to be re-used in a closer cell.
Use a microcellular network, since it can increase the number of channels per cell without an increase in cochannel interference.
This is the reduction of signal power. Fading is caused by many factors with the most important ones being multipath and shielding.
The receiver at the Base station should have an equalizer circuit to compensate for fading.
Decreasing the cell size especially with a low repeat factor increases the problems of interference between cells which are using the same frequency.
Decreasing the cell size increases the frequency of handovers, since a moving cellular phone would be changing cells more often. Since the MSC needs to switch, increasing the handovers will increase that time delay
A total of three hundred and thirty respondents were interviewed for this research. Respondents were chosen appropriately so that the information obtained reflects what actually goes on in the population.
204 respondents representing 62% were males and 126 of them representing 38% were females.
Majority of the respondents for this survey were youths, who were in the working age group. In this survey, 53% respondents were within the ages 15 and 25, 28% were between 26 and 35, 13% were between 36 and 45. Only 6% of the respondents were of age 46 and above.
Cleary, most respondents within this sample were students, followed by businessmen and women to teachers, unemployed, telecommunication staff and others. The implication of this trend is that, most respondents use their mobile phone regularly either for calls or for surfing the internet, indicating how effective people in the upper east region use their mobile phones. 104 respondents representing 32% were students, 86 of them representing 26% were business people, 53 representing 16% were teachers, 26 representing 8% were unemployed, 5 representing 2% were telecommunication staff and 56 representing 17% were people from other background.
It is an undeniable fact that each and everyone in the region have a major reason for choosing the type of telecommunication network he or she uses. The research conducted gave these percentages as shown in Table 5.
MTN had 59% majority of its subscribers using it, because most of their friends and relations use it. Vodafone had 56% of its subscribers using it because they offer good services.
40% majority of the subscribers use Airtel because they offer good services, 100% of the subscribers who use Expresso chose it because it has cheap call charges with Tigo and Glo having 38% and 40% majority respectively using it because they offer good services.
This research indicates that majority of the respondents uses MTN because of most of their friends and family using the network. Interviews further explained that call charges increase when you call a different network from MTN making them hold on to the network.
Vodafone, Airtel, Tigo and Glo had majority of their respondents using those networks based on the fact that they offer good services. The research also revealed that these companies are always jockeying from one promotion to the other to entice people to subscribe to their network. Examples of promotions include Vodafone red, Tigo free bonto etc.
Finding and comparing of data and voice issues among telecommunication companies in the upper east region of Ghana was the rationale for this research. Therefore, this section identifies some reception issues.
Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4 reflect the opinion of respondents concerning connection problems among telecommunication companies in the region.
Table 1. Market Share (Voice) as at April 2013 (www.GhanaWeb.com)
Table 2. Market Share (Data) As At April 2013 (www.GhanaWeb.com)
Table 3. Telecom Voice Subscription Trends 2014 (www.nca.org.gh)
Table 4. Telecom Data Subscription Trends 2014 (www.nca.org.gh)
Table 5. Choice of Network
For Expresso, 100% said that they experience data and voice issues indicating that they face this always, 100% of Tigo respondents also said they experience these problems with 66% being always and 34 % being sometimes.
Also 99%, of the people who use MTN said that they experience these problems with 36% saying always, 63% sometimes and 1% indicating never, 96% of Glo subscribers face the same problem with 36% indicating always, 60% indicating sometimes and 4% as never.
Airtel had 86% facing these problems with 2% indicating always, 84% indicating sometimes and 14% indicating never.
In addition, 79% of Vodafone subscribers face connection problems with 75% being sometimes, 21% being never and 4% being can't tell.
The above analysis makes Vodafone the best network in the region in terms of data and voice issues followed by Airtel with Glo being the third network, followed by MTN then to Tigo with Expresso being the last in the region.
Even though there are several data and voice issues in the upper east region, the above are selected from interviews conducted and personal observations. From personal observation and interviews conducted, call congestion and call drop rate in Navrongo specifically was very high among telecommunication companies, especially MTN, in the month of April in which most of the questionnaires were administered.
Call drop is the unintended disconnection of a call by telecommunications network usually caused by the fall in radio signal strength (Moto-zone.com.au, 2014). This issue makes life unbearable for individuals who use their mobile phones to transact daily business and makes communication, in general, boring and tiresome.
This research revealed that Expresso had 100% of its respondents indicating that they face this problem with 60% indicating it as always and 40% indicating as sometimes. Tigo had 96% of its respondents saying that they face this problem with 72% being always, 24% being sometimes and 4% not facing the problem (Never).
MTN follows with 95% of its respondents indicating that they face this problem with 42% being always, 53% being sometimes and 5% being never, Glo had 88% of its respondents saying that they face this problem with 68% being always, 20% being sometimes and 12% being never.
72% of Airtel respondents said that they face this problem with 70% indicating sometimes, 28% indicating never and 2% saying that they can't tell.
Vodafone had the least number of people experiencing this problem representing 53% with 2% being always, 50% being sometimes, 47% being never where 1% of the subscribers could not tell.
This tells us that in terms of phone calls dropping, Expresso had the highest rate followed by Tigo to MTN with Glo coming next, after which Airtel and lastly Vodafone.
It was well noted during the stipulated time for the research (April, 2014) that MTN subscribers experienced continuous dropping of calls which is unusual of the network in the region.
Call congestion is a failure by a telecommunications network to establish a call. Mobile phone users usually receive a record voice announcement indicating that the call could not be connected. (Moto-zone.com.au, 2014).
From interviews conducted, this is the most annoying of all the issues they face in the region. This issue makes many subscribers angry, especially when they have to send an important notice to someone who is not close to them and can just be reached on phone.
From the research conducted on congestion issues, Expresso had 100% of its respondents being affected by it with 60% being always and 40% being sometimes, 94% experiences this issue using Tigo with 66% being always, 28% being sometimes and 6% being never.
93% subscribers feel this using MTN with 37% feeling this always, 49% sometimes,7% being never and can't tell being 7%.
Glo had 72% saying that they feel this, problem with 56% being always, 16% being sometimes and 28% being never, Vodafone follows having 57% subscribers facing it with 2% being regularly, 43% being sometimes, another 43% being never and 12% being can't tell.
Airtel had 54% of its respondent feeling this, of which 48% being sometimes, 46% being and 6% being can't tell.
From the analysis given, Expresso had the highest rate of call congestion followed by Tigo, and then to MTN with the next network being Glo, Vodafone came next with Airtel being the best in terms of call congestion.
Here it must be also noted that MTN suffered this during the time the questionnaires were administered (April, 2014) since its subscribers experienced continuous congestion of calls which rarely happen in the region
Internet access connects individual computer terminals, computers, mobile devices and computer networks to the internet, enabling users to access internet services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet service providers (ISPs) offer internet access through various technologies that offer a wide range of data signaling rates (speed) (Wikipedia.org, 2014). This aspect seeks to find out the efficiency (speed) in terms of surfing the internet among the telecommunication companies present in the upper east region.
The research revealed that, Expresso had 100% of its respondents saying that it is slow, Tigo followed with 76% indicating slow, 15% indicating moderate, 5% indicating fast and 4% indicating can't tell. Glo was next with 60% indicating slow, 12% indicating moderate and 24% indicating fast.
MTN had 30% of its respondents indicating slow, 61% indicating moderate, 8% indicating fast and 1% saying that they can't tell. Airtel had 16% indicating slow, 62% indicating moderate, 18% indicating fast and 4% saying that they can't tell.
Lastly, Vodafone had 1% of its subscribers saying that it is slow, 37% saying moderate and 62% saying that its fast.
In terms of efficiency (internet speed) among the telcos in the region, Vodafone was the best followed by Airtel, then to MTN with Glo following, then to Tigo with Expresso taking the last position.
From the interviews conducted, Vodafone is fast but expensive to use when surfing the internet, while the other network charges on data is normal.
This is an issue some subscribers face in the region. This problem happens when a subscriber's call is diverted to a non-targeted receiver. This paper revealed that MTN had the highest number of people saying that their calls divert to non-called subscribers, followed by Glo, then to Vodafone with Airtel coming next after which Tigo followed with Expresso being the best in this sector.
This sector got popular when subscribers, specifically students, complained that they don't get any notification when their data is exhausted making them think it as an interruption to their data service, but would realize it later when their accounts are checked.
The research shows that, only Vodafone and Airtel notify their subscribers when their internet data bundle elapse since they had percentages above average with the other network being below average. Figure 3 shows a Chart Showing the Degree of Connection Problems in Percentages.
Figure 3. A Chart Showing the Degree of Connection Problems in Percentages
This section deals with how subscribers see the general performance of their network provider in terms of data and voice in the upper east region. Respondents chose from the list of answers given on the questionnaire ranging from Excellent, Very good, good, fair, poor and very poor.
Table 5 shows that the Vodafone had 43% of its respondents indicating it to be excellent, 46% indicating it as very good, 7% indicating good, and 4% indicating it fair, Airtel had 16% indicating excellent, 36% indicating very good, 44% indicating good, 2% each indicating poor and very poor respectively.
Glo also had 16% indicating excellent, but had 12% indicating very good, 48% indicating good and 24% indicating fair, MTN also had 11% respondents indicating excellent, 39% indicating good, 36% indicating fair, 11% indicating poor and 3% indicating very poor.
Tigo had 24% indicating good, 30% indicating fair and 46% indicating poor, while Expresso had 100% rating as poor.
Table 5 shows the indication that Vodafone was chosen to be the best while Airtel followed, Glo was next with MTN following, then to Tigo and lastly to Expresso.
From the interviews, Vodafone is very swift in solving customer issues, whereas they also compensate customers with airtime and data bundles and apologize whenever there are hitches.
Table 6 shows the Correlation between Customers’ View on change of Network Provider due to frequent bad reception and the Specific Network they are currently Using. Table 7 shows whether Subscribers will change their Network when Reception is bad.
Table 6. Correlation
Table 7. Whether Subscribers will change their Network when Reception is bad
From the survey conducted, it is an undeniable fact that, customers are not satisfied with the kind of services provided by their respective network providers. As hypothesized in this survey that, 'customers would change their network provider if the reception is always bad'; to accentuate more on this, there is the need to critically analyze and find out first if there is a statistical relationship between their current network provider and their willingness to swiftly change to other network provider on condition that their current network reception is always bad.
From Table 6, the Spearman's rho Correlation Coefficient (r = 0.087) clearly shows a strong association between the two cases (i.e. 'would you change your network provider if the reception is always bad?' and 'which of these networks do you use?'). This relation suggests that, there is the likelihood that, customers would change network if they frequently experience bad reception with their present network provider.
The Chi-Square Test (Table 8) was performed to find out difference between the Observed (both responses) and the Expected values. In Table 7 below, the minimum expected cell frequency for both 'Yes' and 'No' response for the hypothetical question is 165.0; however the residual (remaining) values for the responses were different (98.0 and -98.0). The negativity (-98.0) for the 'No' residual value indicates that, the alternative hypothesis cannot be accepted; that customers would not change their network provider if the reception is always bad. Table 8 shows the Chi-Square Statistics Test.
Table 8. Chi-Square Statistics Test
In furtherance, the performance of Chi-Square test is explained 99% confidence level for asymptotic method coupled with alpha level 0.05 which was used for all equal categories (Observed N and Expected N). From Table 8, the Asymptotic Significant value for the Chi-square statistics test is less than 0.05, and this implies that there is a relationship between the response variable based on the level of confidence as stated above. As seen in Table 8, the Chi-square significance value is 0.000 which is less than 0.05, hence statistically significant to accept the fact that, customers would change their network provider if the reception is always bad.
Considering the evidential analysis above, this research unreservedly establishes the fact that, customers for the six telecommunication networks in Ghana would switch from their current network to other network provider if they frequently experience bad reception.
This should tell the telcos that customers would switch from one operator to the other if they take them for granted.
This study therefore concludes that, Data and Voice Issues rate are high among the Telecommunication companies in the region. This, in one way or the other, makes life unbearable, since technology has become a part of many people’s life.
Comparing data and voice issues as the focus of this study has revealed some findings. These findings as discussed have provided the necessary platform in making recommendations in improvements on Data and Voice Communication among Telecommunication companies.
In view of the findings that evolved from the study, the following recommendations have been made for considerations in improving the Data and Voice Issues among Telecommunication companies in the Upper East Region.
The study mainly compared Data and Voice issues among Telecommunication companies in the Upper East Region of Ghana. It is recommended that future research should conduct a study on the various Causes of Data and Voice Issues in the Upper East Region of Ghana.