The Cost Of Data Bundle: An Impediment To The Digitization Drive Of The Country

The digitization of all sectors of the nation is imperative and an important drive towards our national development as detection of crime, banking transactions, using the Ghana Postal and Residential Address System, and a host of others are not only dependent on the internet but also on its reliability, accessibility and affordability.

The reliability, accessibility, and affordability, however, is guaranteed only at night and does not facilitate the individual's effort to use the available digitized services. One has to forgo sleeping to access affordable and reliable data for online transactions and other equally important purposes owing to the exorbitant cost of data in the daytime arising from the inordinate profiteering of telecommunicational networks of the country one of which has gained notoriety in deducting with the rapidity with consumers throwing their hands about in despair as a result of lack of protection from recognised institutions like the Consumer Protection Agency and the ministry of communications itself.

A situation which has the capacity to impact negatively on the life expectancy ratio of the nation in the foreseeable future because sleeping is one of the preconditions for a healthy and a longer life according to The Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2010 report.

The worst of it all is that medium which allows consumers to buy data bundle on the credit of a certain network operator which has a very questionable penchant to reduce data bundle to nothing and the rapidity with which the deduction is carried out is beautifully and incredibly fast with this same network operator of which everyone could simply guess overnight in spite of the very expensive nature of this avenue for buying data.

The rate is unthinkably high in this regard and the regulatory bodies ought not to allow that data selling plan to continue as it only serves to further the extortion of the masses and enrichment of these self-centered telcos whose appetite for profit maximization is unreasonably unrestrained.

Consumers do not need reliable, accessible and affordable data bundle only at night that would only serve to sacrificing their sleep which is an essential precondition for a healthy living, an addiction to this which would definitely kill people prematurely according to the copiously available researches online.

Again, the essence of digitization is to reduce, if not prevent entirely, the inconveniences that characterize the service sector in the shape of queues in our banks, passport acquisition, using the Ghana Postal Address by people including Uber, Bolt and other commercial vehicle operators among others which are mostly patronised during the daytime and it is only prudent to provide reliable, accessible and affordable data bundle as an essential ingredient to aid the digitization drive of the country.

One sure way to achieving this is for the government to provide reliable, accessible, and affordable wifi to workplaces and residential areas to bring competition to bear on the pricing of data bundle and eventually force the telcos to reduce and provide quality services on data bundle delivery going forward.

Who will speak for and on behalf of the vulnerable Ghanaian consumer? The system is not working according to Twene Jonas TV on Facebook.

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