by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Vodafone claims that it was 'forced' to send messages urging customers to attend rally in support of President Hosni Mubarak, according to reports of the wire services.
Telecommunications giant Vodafone says that it was 'forced' to send texts messages urging customers to support President Hosni Mubarak, but I must say that the 'forced' bit just does not wash with me.
Text messages (SMS), urging recipients to join a pro-Mubarak rally, were, apperently sent via Vodafone and other carriers. The messages were sent at a time when few other text messages were being delivered.
Vodafone said that the Egyptian government’s use of emergency laws to force it to send the text messages was “unacceptable”, and that it had officially complained.
This is the lamest excuse that I have ever hear in my life. Who cares about the emergency laws... if you don't want to send the messages to all customers you don't and shut your offices in the country that behaves like that.
When Vodafone blocked mobile voice and data services, the company said it had no option but to comply with the government’s instruction to do so. “Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it.”
Vodafone’s Egyptian division is a joint venture with Telecom Egypt, which in turn is majority-owned by the state.
The UK-headquartered company also operates a customer support call centre near Cairo. Union sources have said that customer calls have been redirected to UK contact centres as a result of the upheaval in Egypt. These include technical support calls that the UK division does not have the resources to handle, the sources claim. Vodafone has declined repeated requests to confirm or deny these reports.
As it reported a 3.5% rise in quarterly revenues to £11.9 billion this week, Vodafone said that emerging markets have been an important source of growth for the company and will be a strategic focus in future.
As we can, yet again see, all that Vodafone is interested in is money; profits for itself and the shareholders. Nothing else they care about. Not that that surprises me. This is the very same service that claims that it is the best in Britain with the best coverage and keeps making such false claims on advertising hoardings, in the media, etc.
Having personally used Vodafone’s service in the UK and found it worse that useless with the signals being so low in most cases that communication by voice particular was just not possible and neither is their mobile Internet useful in a great number of areas I switched over to a competitors of theirs which was once upon a time run by the original landline telephone carrier in the UK.
Business as usual for the likes of Vodafone whatever upheaval in a country; ethics are non-existent.
However, we all can send Vodafone a real audible message in that we change our service to a carrier who is not implicated in the fiasco in Egypt and if all of Vodafone’s customers in the UK and elsewhere would do just that then, I am sure, the message would be received loud and clear; more than what could be said for the company's telephone service in Britain.
© 2011
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