There has been a lot of activity recently around the cell phone companies and the allegations of deteriorating services. The Idols fiasco brought nation wide attention to the problem. ICASA summoned the cell phone providers to explain this debacle and the ongoing complaints of dropped calls. The outcome of this was of little comfort to consumers, since the providers assured ICASA that there is nothing wrong with their services.

As users of the cell phone provider services we know this is not true. As providers of broadband access we constantly deal with connectivity problems and harass our suppliers to improve their service, but this has had little effect. Over the last 2 years their has been a steady decline in service with consumers experiencing call disconnects or services simply not being available.

It appears that this problem also extends to the data services of the cell phone providers, with users experiencing difficulties connecting or a deterioration in connection speeds in areas where they previously had no problems. It is hoped that ICASA's action will force the cell phone companies to start addressing these problems even if they denied them publicly.