Pure theft! – Students join #SaveOurData campaign

For days now, several customers of mobile telecommunication companies have been complaining bitterly about how the increase in the cost of internet packages has made their lives unbearable.

Speaking with some visibly frustrated students at the University of Ghana, they echoed how their service providers have been exploiting them ever since the implementation of a host of directives from the National Communications Authority (NCA) came into existence.

“Right now it’s just too much, I tried taking a test on Sakai, it was a set of tests that I had to do online yet by the time I finished with the second one, they said I have run out of bundle which caused me to fail in that exams and I blame them for that.”

“I think they have come up with innovative ways of killing us, they have been making a lot of noise about the fact that their data bundles no longer expire, so I gave it a try by purchasing 10ghc and trust me within some few minutes of browsing I received a message prompting me that I out of data. This is pure theft.” He lamented.

Some aggrieved students also told Ghanaweb that they are ready to demonstrate against the telcos irrespective of their schedules.

Background

The regulator (NCA) last month directed the telcos to stop charging consumers upfront for the nine percent Communication Service Tax (CST) and should also remove expiry dates on internet data purchased by consumers.

The telcos in response asked that they will would want to reconfigure their billing systems and halt the upfront charge of the CST by November 26.
Having done that, the telcos proceeded to add the nine percent CST into their price build-up leading to an increase in voice as well as data services.

However, following the implementation of a no expiry of data, consumers are beginning to realize that their regular data bundles are now costing more although they have no expiry.

Meanwhile, the hashtag #SaveOurData has been trending on Twitter with more than 10,000 tweets sent out by consumers who are largely registering their protest over what they describe as exorbitant prices.