MTN Nigeria has reported serious fibre cuts in the Eastern part of the country which has led to service outage in the area. It is reported that the fibre cuts are as a result of ongoing road construction of various routes around Aba, Enugu, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Eket, IkotAbasi, Ete, Uyo and Calabar.

According to AkinwaleGoodluck, MTN's Corporate Services Executive, "In recent times, multiple cuts on our Eastern Fibre Network has impeded the delivery of consistently good quality of service in the East. These particular cuts are as a result of road construction activities, which has impacted many of our sites. However, we suffer over 70 fibre cuts monthly nationwide due to vandalisation, sabotage and other criminal activities."

He said that the company has doubled surveillance on the affected routes to track the activities of the construction companies. "In addition, our fibre maintenance engineers are working round the clock to repair damage as soon as it is detected. We are working towards an improved experience on the network very soon."

Goodluck said that as a customer-focused organization, MTN is not unaware of the inconveniences that some of its customers in the East must be experiencing. "Please bear with us as we are doing everything in our control to restore good service."

With investments in excess of N900 billion, MTN has installed the biggest network in Sub-Saharan Africa and continue to aggressively invest in Nigeria in the deployment of the state of art multimedia technology highway. In June 2010, MTN received NGN310 billion (USD2.08 billion) loan facilities from a consortium of 17 banks to enable it to further expand its telecoms network across the country.

Mobile operators have in the last few years cried out to the Federal Government to come to their aid by enacting a law that will criminalise the destruction of telecommunications infrastructure and secure the billions of investments made by the private sector players in the economy.