MTN Nigeria, yesterday, said the closure of its facilities in Ondo by the state government would negatively impact on the quality of its service in the state and its environs.
According to report, the telecoms operator said millions of subscribers would be affected by the development.
According to a statement, its corporate communications executive, Amina Oyagbola disclosed that services that will be affected includes voice and data services, voice traffic across other operators and international traffic, enterprise data service to third-party clients (mostly banks and other corporate clients), which may, in turn, impact services such as ATMs, POS and others.
It will be recalled that the Ondo State Government, on December 23, 2015, sealed MTN’s base transmission stations (BTS) in the state over tax-related issues. The Ondo State Board of Internal Revenue Service (OSBIRS) claimed MTN owed it N458.5 million in tax.
But MTN said: “There will be poor or total loss of network coverage for all MTN subscribers in Ondo as the sealing of facilities means that service providers will not be able to carry out routine maintenance work or refuel the generators servicing the base transceiver stations (BTS’). In addition, a major hub site for both fibre and microwave transmission which connects the north, south and east will be affected, leading to loss of services in the whole of Ekiti State, as well as parts of Edo and Niger states.” the MTN executive said.