GSM War – Losses, Arrogance, Belligerence

26 May 2011

Perhaps for the first time since its advent, the Global System for Mobile (GSM) formerly Groupe Special Mobile (GSM), run awry with itself when two of its most prominent hosts clashed in what appears to be technological warfare. Lone Star Communications, the pioneer of Liberia’s GSM regime, apparently screwed its cellular circuit sending the customers of its archrival, Cellcom, fondly referred to as the true champion of GSM liberalization in Liberia, crawling for signals for connectivity. But when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. While Lone Star and Cellcom were trying muscles, subscribers of both companies were feeling the pinch, at least economically, even though the fuel took only hours rather than days. Some are still counting the cost of losses, as The Analyst reports.

Josephine Karjeah, 26, panted up and down the corridors of the Fishing Peer on Bushrod Island. She was already thirty minutes behind schedule. She generated another call. It showed “call failed”. She tried another one. It failed. She stamped her feet on the tiled floor. But the solution did come out.

The target of Josephine’s failed call was a taxi driver, a regular contact in her daily ferrying of frozen fish to Harbel. She had already bought the day’s fish, the cost put at US$300, which she needed to put on the taxi for Harbel where a throng of her customers, mostly sell-pay petit traders, were waiting to begin their day’s business.

Instead of her regular frozen fish shop which the taxi driver knew, Josephine made business with another frozen fish company, thinking that her relocation wouldn’t matter because a mobile phone would do the trick. But it was a fatal error. Her only Cellcom sim could not get through to the LoneStar sim bearer taxi driver.

The driver had gone to the regular spot and did not find Josephine. Taxi drivers jealously treat time than anyone else. He left. And there was Josephine with cartoons of frozen fish, thinking that her driver customer had switched his phone off and taken the pre-paid transportation fares she had already given.

Unable to get another money to charter another taxi, Josephine stood there watching over her US$300 goods waiting in vain for rescue. She called, called and called. But her phone could not help the situation.

“It was my worst day in business,” she said quite dejectedly. “By the end of the day, my fish was rot, and my US$300 gone in the breeze.”

But Josephine says the network blockade did not affect her alone. She suspects that it also affected her many customers, mostly sell-and-pay women, who depend on her to make a living.

“You and I cannot completely count the cost of the day, because there also were seven to ten women who waited in vain in Harbel and could not make any business. And if you look at the ‘from hand to mouth’ living condition in Liberia, you can imagine how many people slept hungry because of GSM network failure.”

Sure, Josephine and perhaps her retail customers might not be the only people that felt the pinch of the clash of the titans–Cellcom and Lonestar—resulting in the unavailability of link and signals between the two.

Historical feud had silently seethed between the two most popular GSM companies, though the feud is civil but deep rooted.

On the Liberian front, LoneStar is credited as the pioneer of GSM revolution. Though while it prides itself for that epithet, there are some who think it took advantage of its pioneering status, which eventually was a monopoly, to exploit Liberians who had just graduated from years of brutal civil conflict.

LoneStar cell card was then sold for US$65 and the least cost for scratch card US$15 and one needed to exhaust within a limited time period.

Then came Cellcom which, by the power of competitiveness and out of its own business technique, broke up the monopoly and relieved more Liberians, particularly the underprivileged to be able to get a foothold on the international superhighway.

The advent other two or three other GSM companies after Cellcom continues to reap the fruit of competition, as cost of services tumbles by the day.

The two Liberian GSM giants have since looking at each other with the eye of an eager.

Some pundits believe it is the mutual suspicion between the two that have matured into blockade that many think have cost the business community so much money.

It seems it was the oldest GSM Company, Lone Star Communications, that sparked the temporary but costly standoff with the sealing of its circuits against Cellcom.

Perhaps severely irked by the blockade, Cellcom quickly raised alarms, calling on the Telecommunication Management to prevail on the Lone Star Communication Corporation (LCC) Management which it says had deliberately been blocking calls from CELLCOM to Lone Star Cell, an action which CELLCOM Management in the press statement described as posing serious embarrassment to it many subscribers for several hours.

The deliberate blocking of Cellcom network comes in the aftermath of a May 9th promotion undertaken by Cellcom giving its subscribers an offer of nine cents per minute to call other networks.

In a press release CELLCOM charged that it was a deliberate blocking by Lone Star of Cellcom calls; something CELLCOM calls a gross violation of the Telecommunications Act of 2007 which states that “dominant service providers are prohibited from undertaking activities or actions that abuse their dominant positions”.

CELLCOM also contends that then “deliberate blocking by Lone Star of Cellcom’s outgoing calls is a clear violation of the inter-connection agreement between the two companies which requires both to remain committed to keeping the lines of communications open at all times and of an LTA Order of October 15, 2010 , which recommended that both Cellcom And Lonestar remain interconnected and ensure high quality of service for consuming public.”

Cellcom assured its consumers and subscribers that it remained committed to the practice of the highest ethical guidelines governing the LTA and the laws of the Republic of Liberia.

Cellcom said it also could have breached the telecommunications agreement by blocking Lone Star subscribers, but it chose not to in the interest of the people who matter most, the subscribers.

“We are urging our subscribers and the general public to support us in this action as we strive to improve Telecommunications services in Liberia. We will continue to work with the LTA and the relevant authorities to restore normal service to all of our valuable subscribers,” CELLCOM said.

But LoneStar reacted sharply, justifying its action of blockage. Lonestar noted that the management of CELLCOM owned the Lone Star Communication Corporation Management US$1m which represents arrears as of March, 2011, dating far back from June, 2009.

The Lone Star Cell says it has provided services to all other GSM networks in Liberia in good faith, but emphasized that Lone Star Cell had written several communications as well as the presentation of invoices to CELLCOM’s management but to no avail, thus leaving Lone Star Cell Management with the legitimate option is to take those actions including the involvement of the Liberia Telecommunication Authority LTA that now handling the matter.

“Lonestar Communications Corporation is not just a GSM company; it is a company that cares about the Liberian nation and its people,” a release from the company states. “Operating in Liberia since 2001, Lonestar cell has been in full compliance with all Laws and Regulations governing our existence in Liberia and has been a true partner with the Government of Liberia in its efforts to improve our nation and the lives of its people”.

The company says evidence of this is the recognition of and the awarding to Lonestar cell a Certificate as the Largest Taxpayer in the Republic of Liberia in 2010.

With each of the company claiming the right side in the matter, however reportedly resolved, it is not known whether the standoff though remedied will not flare up again in the future.

AllAfrica – All the Time