The Effect of the Load Shedding on the Qoe and Qos of Mobile Network Operators

Abstract

The telecommunication industry over the last decades have proven not only as an emerging economic sector but a rapidly growing sector with an immense chain of impacts towards the revolution of the social and economic structures of Ghana. One of the challenges faced by telecom network operators in Ghana is the frequent outage of electricity, since most of the cell sites in Ghana are powered by electricity from the national grid. The load shedding between (2012-2015) posed many challenges to the Telco's in meeting their key performance indicators to the regulator and maintaining the quality of user experience to customers. This article therefore sought to assess the impact of the load-shedding on telecom company's Quality of Service and Quality of user Experience during the peak moments of the load-shedding. Primary data used was acquired from MTN Ghana using Accra Metropolis as case study. The research used the purposive and random sampling in the conduct of the study for the collection of data. The data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and the Statistical package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study reveals a sterling performance of MTN Ghana in meeting the QoS indicators and their respective threshold for compliance during the non-load shedding period compared to the load-shedding period. The study also revealed that 89% of the respondents were satisfied with the quality of voice call delivered by MTN Ghana. 68% of the respondents were satisfied with the quality of internet service as well.