Diesel Prices Surge, Your Network Starts Rationing Itself

Listen, we need to talk about your phone, and no, please don’t go to the balcony for better signal. We are about to start charging for that balcony.

Diesel prices are surging, and the warning is that mobile network quality and telecom services are under threat. In plain English: the thing that powers the tower is now more expensive than the thing that powers you.

Here is what nobody told you. Those towers on the roadside don’t run on love, and they certainly don’t run on the national grid, which has been on a very long break. They run on diesel. MTN alone relies on generators for more than 20,000 base stations. That’s a small army of generators in fields, quietly drinking more every day than any of us can afford.

And the bill has to go somewhere. Tower companies have contracts that pass fuel increases on to the networks. The networks have shareholders and, apparently, a sense of self-preservation. So the bill will travel the way water goes downhill, to its final destination: you.

You can already feel it coming. Last December, when diesel supply ran into trouble in Abuja, people reported dropped calls, slow data and unstable connections. The regulator responded by promising to “facilitate dialogue.” Nothing says “we’re on it” like dialogue. Dialogue has never dropped a call, though to be fair, it has never connected one either.

Let me paint you a picture of what bad network looks like. You will say “Hello?” and the other person will say “Hello? Can you hear me?” and you will both say “I can’t hear you” for four minutes. That will be the longest conversation either of you has had all year.

Your bank app will say “processing.” Your transfer will say “pending.” Your mother will say, “Why didn’t you pick my call?” and you will explain that the tower is on a diet. She will not accept this.

There is one bright side. For years, “my network is bad” has been the excuse for every missed meeting, ignored call, and unanswered invitation. Soon it will be true, and you will feel like an honest person for the first time.

Operators say they are turning to solar and gas, which is wonderful news for the future and no help to the call you are making now. Planting a tree is a lovely idea, but it won’t shade you this afternoon.

At press time, a man in Lekki was seen holding his phone up to the sky like a prayer. Please keep your calls short, your expectations shorter, and your battery full. The tower, like the rest of us, is doing its best. It is just doing it hungry.