Long Distance Love In Jeopardy

Scramble For Free calls to the Gambia

The Gambia is classify as the most expensive country to call in the world, due to multiple factors. Gambians are scrambling to find ways and means of connecting with family and love ones. Over recent years, Gambians abroad saved hundreds on expensive phones cards and vouchers. At the height of the cruel call connection levy, Gambians buy calling cards promising to give them 200 minutes of call time, only for such high promises to be 20 minutes of talk time. The impact of bad line is said to be affecting long distance marriages, since couples are not understanding one another better.

This mess has resulted in many buying smart phones to call the country using ‘Skype and Viber’. However, of late skype and viber have been experiencing serious network difficulty. Some experts attributed these problems to two things, the Gambian telephone operatives deliberately slowing down their networks to force Diaspora callers to revert to conventional phone cards, which charge exorbitant connection  fees. A source intimated that, all the Gambia’s telecom providers complain to the government on losing a lot with people using Skype and Viber especially.  Hence, the most tangible explanation is the state tampering with this free call facility.

The second explanation for the poor network in connecting Skype and Viber is said to be the company’s themselves. Skype and Viber have started a new tariff call, Skype out and Viber out. These two applications cost money, although it may be much cheaper. Skype and Viber are said to be responsible in affecting their call quality to force users to buy credit and call.

Whatever the case may be, Gambians are experiencing serious inconveniences in using both Skype and Viber. The new kid on the bloke though is a new call application call ‘LINE’.

Whilst Gambians are rushing to download LINE apps, it may result in little difference since they all operate on internet availability. The question now is, who is tampering with Gambia’s internet facility?

Another theory people are advancing is that, the Gambia government could have paid foreign companies to disrupt the free call facility. Some have cite Israel as a possible link in the poor phone lines. Long distance love relationship is the casualty as many Gambian men leave their spouses behind for greener pasture afar. If the phone line is bad, this creates many little misunderstanding, hence, other unexpected complications. We hope that, couples can manage the situation well and continue to search for cheaper means to keep in touch.

Keep Kairo News posted on the cheapest available call facility.