Telecom
Mobile Etiquette: Are You Phone Savvy or Bore?
Cell phones are now part of our culture, our lives, and our realities. We are now used to it!
While mobile communication provides many benefits, including convenience, flexibility and personal security, it can sometimes be intrusive to others.
But seem to think, they are the only one with a cell phone. They pull it out at will, talk loud, not because he can only hear out of one ear, but he wants people to notice.
Now students leave class in the middle of lectures, disrupt the class and they answer the phone while sitting with their friends, all to please whom ever it is calling, driving while talking is just as dangerous as drinking and driving.
Correct mobile phone etiquette – is important both in considering others and helping to keep you and those around you safe.
1. Pay attention to the road.
We have growing evidence that cell phones may distract drivers and cause risks for themselves and other drivers.
The cell savvy user never uses a mobile phone while driving unless it is "hands free." Not only are both hands free to shift and steer, there seems to be a very significant difference in the degree of attention deficit when using an ear phone. The ear phone makes it much easier to focus on driving.
The cell savvy user is also careful to limit conversations in cars to traffic areas and conditions requiring low amounts of decision-making. In high volume, tricky driving situations, the cell savvy user either turns the phone off or lets it ring.
The cell phone bore pays no attention to traffic conditions, drives with phone in hand and may put surrounding cars and drivers at risk. Too focussed on phoning, the cell phone bore often misses what is happening on the road nearby and makes driving moves and decisions at an impaired level. Busy chatting, the cell phone bore may run a stop sign and broadside a car.
2. Speak softly.
The cell savvy user is careful to speak in hushed tones, knowing that a mobile phone has a sensitive microphone capable of picking up a soft voice.
The cell savvy user also sets the ring tone at a low level with a tune that is soft, gentle and not annoying.
The more crowded the situation, the quieter and softer the volume of voice and ring.
The cell savvy user moves to vibrate in any situation like a church, a workshop or a meeting where a ringing sound would prove disturbing to other people.
The cell savvy user tries to gain as little phone attention as possible. The goal is to communicate effectively without anybody else noticing or caring.
The cell phone bore speaks loudly and employs loud, obnoxious ring tones at all the wrong times and in all the wrong places. The cell phone bore calls attention to herself or himself.
Some people seem incapable of speaking on their cell phone in a normal tone of voice. Perhaps they are subconsciously worried that the party on the other end cannot hear them very well, so they double and triple their volume. Sometimes it seems as if they are shouting.
Watch the reactions of people near the cell phone bore when the voice or the ringer are too loud. The cell phone bore is not a popular person. Back to Top
3. Keep your distance.
Each person is surrounded by a personal space. This space provides feelings of safety and calm, especially in crowded places.
When strangers come into our personal space, it can make us feel uncomfortable.
The smart cell phone user respects the personal space of other people and tries to speak in places 10-20 feet or more away from the closest person.
If there is no private, separate space available, the smart cell phone user waits to speak on the phone until a good space is available.
Sensitivity to other peoples’ needs and comforts is a sign of good character.
Crowded rooms, lines and tight hallways are not good places to carry on phone conversations.
Next time you find yourself in a crowded space, watch the reactions of non mobile phone users to those who speak loudly into their phones while standing next to them.
The cell phone bore ignores the private personal space of others and seems oblivious to the discomfort caused by such behavior. Unconscious, unconcerned and unaware, the cell phone bore acts as if no one else matters. Back to Top
4. Keep business private.
Many personal and business conversations contain information that should remain confidential or private. Before using a mobile phone in a public location to discuss private business or issues, the cell savvy user makes sure that there will be enough distance to keep the content private. Some stories, some issues and some conflicts should be saved for times and locations that will allow for confidentiality.
The cell phone bore does not think strategically about content and handles a full range of issues and topics in a wide variety of settings without paying much attention to the surrounding audience. This lack of discrimination can have dangerous consequences as business deals, relationships and future plans may all be endangered by leaks and loose tongues.
5. Keep a civil and pleasant tone.
The cell savvy user knows that others might overhear a conversation, so they are careful to maintain a public voice that will not disturb others. At the same time, the cell savvy user knows that certain types of conversations may require or inspire some tough talk or emotional tones. They reserve these conversations for more private settings. They do not fire employees, chastise employees, argue with a boss or fight with a spouse or teenager on their mobile phones in public settings.
The cell phone bore will sometimes air dirty laundry in public and share emotionally intense conversations with nearby strangers. The cell phone bore will speak in loud and angry tones that often cause other people to move away if they can. Back to Top
6.. No cell phone before it’s time.
The cell savvy user thinks about when to turn the phone on or off. There are many situations where it would be rude if a phone rang, interrupting the transaction at hand.
Stepping up to a service counter, entering a restaurant or joining a meeting, the cell savvy user turn off the phone and relies upon voice mail to take incoming calls.
There may be sometimes when a particular incoming call or message requires an exception, but the vast majority of callers do not require immediate access.
The cell phone bore leaves the phone on all the time in all places regardless of the situation. The cell phone bore answers the phone no matter what else is happening and expects others to sit and wait while they chat with the caller. Back to Top
7. One thing at a time.
The busy person multi-tasking at a desk can be a wonderful model of efficiency, handling, phone, keyboard, coffee cup and remote control all at the same time, but at other times, multi-tasking can be hazardous, rude and inefficient.
The cell savvy user reserves multi-tasking for situations and times when it is safe, convenient and appropriate. Approaching a counter to work through a problem with an airline ticket, the cell savvy user turns off the phone or its ringer to protect the coming transaction from interruption. One thing at a time. Focus. Efficiency. Manners.
The cell savvy user often stops other activities such as typing when a call comes through in order to give the caller, full attention. Free of distraction, the cell savvy user makes the most of the call.
The cell phone bore often juggles multiple tasks at the wrong times in the wrong places and often drops a ball or makes someone else angry.
Stepping to the counter to work out a problem with a ticket, the cell phone bore takes an incoming call right in the middle of the transaction and holds up the employee as well as all the other customers lined up waiting for service. Oblivious to the inconvenience and inefficiency caused, the cell phone bore allows a mobile phone to interfere with the performance of the employee and the needs of the other customers. The cell phone bore puts personal wishes ahead of civility.
Global pressure on corporations to provide transparent climate and sustainability disclosures is reshaping reporting standards across capital markets. Anticipating that shift, MTN released its first sustainability report in 2018. And it has just published its 2025 Sustainability Report in compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S1 and S2. It is one of the few African-listed companies to voluntarily adopt the framework ahead of its mandatory implementation timeline.
MTN Nigeria
The report marks MTN Nigeria’s seventh consecutive annual sustainability publication and third straight year as an early adopter of the IFRS sustainability disclosure standards. Independently assured by Ernst & Young (EY), the report aligns with multiple global and local reporting frameworks, including the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board telecommunications standard, the UN Global Compact Principles, the Nigerian Exchange sustainability guidelines, and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Sustainable Finance Principles.
MTN Nigeria’s CEO, Dr. Karl Toriola, said: “Strong governance and ethical conduct are foundational to our sustainability strategy. We reinforced compliance through our Conduct Passport Framework and robust internal controls.”
In May 2025, we became the first telecommunications company in Nigeria to publicly present a sustainability report on the Nigerian Exchange Group platform, an important milestone in our commitment to IFRS S1 and S2- aligned disclosure and accountability.”
The company also secured Carbon Disclosure Project ratings of ‘B-’ for climate change and ‘C’ for water security. Under the IFRS S2 framework, the telecoms operator disclosed climate-related risks linked to flooding, heat stress, regulatory changes and possible future taxes or charges on carbon emissions, following a climate scenario analysis completed in 2024.
The report also showed that MTN Nigeria now uses a digital reporting format – XBRL. This makes its sustainability and governance data easier for investors and ESG rating agencies to access and analyse through automated systems.
They also carried out assessments to understand how sustainability issues affect both its business operations and society at large, while measuring its overall economic, environmental and social impact from 2021 to 2024.
In addition, over one-third of MTN Nigeria’s biggest suppliers (based on spending) have committed to supporting the company’s net-zero emissions goals, although these commitments have not yet gone through an independent audit or verification process.
The top ten mobile network operators in the world account for roughly 3.8 billion subscriptions, about 43 percent of the 8.8 billion mobile lines in service worldwide as of mid-2024.
The composition of that top ten has changed substantially over the past decade.
China Mobile crossed one billion subscribers in the second quarter of 2024 and remains in first place by a wide margin.
Reliance Jio, which did not exist before September 2016, is now the world’s second-largest mobile operator and a clear example of how quickly the rankings have moved.
Vodafone Group, long counted second worldwide, has divested operations in India, Italy, Spain, and Australia since 2019 and now sits well outside the top five.
This article runs through the major operators with current subscriber figures, then closes with a fifteen-country table and a short note on what has changed since the industry’s last reshuffle.
China Mobile
China Mobile reached 1.004 billion subscribers in the second quarter of 2024, the first single operator anywhere to pass the one-billion line.
It accounts for roughly 19 percent of all global mobile subscriptions on its own.
The company was carved out of the original China Telecom in 1999 and listed on both the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges, though it remains majority-owned by the Chinese state.
Growth has slowed sharply as the Chinese market has saturated: China Mobile took until Q4 2014 to reach 800 million subscribers and nearly another full decade to add the next 200 million.
Its 5G subscriber base reached 599 million by the end of 2025, by far the largest 5G network in the world.
In revenue terms China Mobile reported roughly 98.4 billion euros in 2024, comparable to Deutsche Telekom but well below Verizon and AT&T.
Reliance Jio
Reliance Jio launched commercial 4G service across India in September 2016 with an aggressive bundled-data pricing strategy that effectively ended the previous Indian market structure.
Subscriber numbers reached 481.8 million by mid-2024, ranking Jio second worldwide and the largest single-country operator outside China.
Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, the conglomerate founded by Dhirubhai Ambani and now led by his son Mukesh Ambani; the unit’s data plans in 2025 included tiers as low as roughly US$2.17 for three gigabytes of data, with cricket-season offers pushing that to 15 gigabytes for US$2.73 on a 90-day validity. The combination of low ARPU and very high subscriber volumes is now the standard story across Indian telecoms, and Jio is the operator that set it.
China Telecom
China Telecom, the parent of the 1999 break-up that produced China Mobile, ranks third globally with 422.67 million mobile subscribers in 2024.
Like China Mobile and China Unicom, it is a state-owned enterprise headquartered in Beijing and listed in both Hong Kong and (until 2021) New York.
China Telecom historically held the largest share of the Chinese fixed-line market and entered mobile services later than China Mobile; its mobile business has grown steadily through the 5G transition, with 5G handset subscribers crossing 350 million in 2024.
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel, headquartered at Bharti Crescent in New Delhi, ranked fourth in 2024 with 395.15 million subscribers across India, Sri Lanka, and fourteen African countries.
The company was founded by Sunil Bharti Mittal as Bharti Telecom in 1995, with the Airtel brand launched the same year for mobile service in Delhi. Airtel’s African operations are run through Airtel Africa, listed separately on the London Stock Exchange since 2019, and account for roughly a third of total group subscribers.
Airtel posted the strongest revenue growth of any of the world’s top twenty telcos in the year to Q3 2024 (4.6 percent), driven by ARPU gains in both India and several large African markets.
China Unicom
China Unicom, the third state-owned Chinese carrier, ranked fifth globally in 2024 with 339.3 million mobile subscribers.
The company was created in 1994 to break China Telecom’s then-monopoly on telecommunications services, and it remains the smallest of the three Chinese state operators by mobile market share. China Unicom merged its mobile and fixed-line networks with China Telecom for 5G deployment in 2019, sharing infrastructure to reduce build costs across the country’s vast rural areas.
The Global Multinationals
América Móvil, headquartered in Mexico City and controlled by the family of Carlos Slim, served 323 million mobile subscribers as of 2024, anchored by Telcel in Mexico (the dominant national operator) and Claro brand operations across most of Latin America. Telefónica, headquartered in Madrid, served roughly 300 million across Spain, Brazil (under the Vivo brand), Germany, the United Kingdom, and several other markets, though it has been divesting non-core operations and the global subscriber number has trended down.
Orange, the former France Télécom rebranded in 2013, served 253 million across France, Spain, Belgium, Poland, and twenty-plus African and Middle Eastern markets through its Orange Middle East and Africa subsidiary. MTN Group, headquartered in Johannesburg, served roughly 290 million subscribers across 21 African countries (with Nigeria and South Africa as its two largest markets), making it the largest African operator and the eighth-largest worldwide.
Vodafone Group
The Shard in London, with the wider city skyline of the United Kingdom in the background.
The Shard, London. Vodafone Group is headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Vodafone Group is no longer the world’s second-largest mobile operator.
The company has spent the past six years divesting from markets where it was unable to lead: it sold Vodafone India to merge with Idea Cellular in 2018 (creating the standalone Indian operator Vodafone Idea, in which Vodafone Group retains a 23.2 percent stake); sold Vodafone Italy to Swisscom; sold Vodafone Spain to Zegona Communications in 2023; exited Australia through a merger; and in 2025 merged Vodafone UK with Three UK to create the largest mobile operator in the British market.
The remaining Vodafone Group footprint is concentrated in Germany, the UK (post-Three merger), and African markets where it operates through Vodacom.
Total Vodafone Group mobile subscribers, including Vodacom but excluding the minority-held Vodafone Idea stake, sit in the 270 to 300 million range depending on which businesses are counted in or out, well below the 469.7 million figure that placed Vodafone second worldwide a decade ago.
MTN Nigeria has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 6.4 per cent even as it estimates that powering its nationwide network with diesel costs more than N60 billion every year.
In its newly released 2025 Sustainability Report, the telecom operator said its operational emissions fell by 6.4%, driven by investments in cleaner and more efficient energy solutions.
The company’s climate efforts are anchored on Project Zero, MTN’s long-term strategy to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040.
In 2025, the telco invested N10.1 billion in the initiative and recorded savings of about N8.5 billion.
The programme built on work done in 2024, when MTN replaced 86 outdated cooling systems with more energy-efficient units across data centres, switch centres, and telecom sites.
In 2025, the company expanded its strategy further by replacing diesel-powered systems with gas-powered electricity and inverter solutions, while also increasing its solar-powered rural telephony sites from 194 to 229 to improve connectivity in underserved communities.
The progress, however, has occurred within stark realities.
Diesel made up of 58.11% of the telco’s total energy consumption in 2025, far exceeding gas-powered independent power producers at 23.63% and electricity from the national grid at 18.04%, with renewable energy contributing just 0.05%.
This is not merely an environmental challenge but a financial one. MTN estimates that powering its nationwide network with diesel costs more than N60 billion every year.
Nigeria’s power sector is marked by persistent grid instability, with 12 national grid collapses reported in 2024 alone, conditions that continue to force telecom operators to lean heavily on generators to sustain network operations.
Notably, MTN Nigeria was one of only four Nigerian companies (alongside Seplat Energy, Access Bank, and Fidelity Bank) that published inaugural financial reports using IFRS S1 and S2 sustainability reporting standards as early adopters, well ahead of the mandatory compliance deadline.
More than one-third of MTN Nigeria’s major suppliers have also aligned with the company’s long-term environmental goals, focused on reducing emissions across its supply chain and operations.
Dr. Karl Toriola, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria, described the 2025 report as “an important milestone in our commitment to IFRS S1 and S2-aligned disclosure and accountability,” adding that sustainability remains central to the company’s long-term value-creation strategy.
In presenting the 2024 report, Toriola had similarly anchored the company’s ambition to the dual imperatives of building business resilience and unlocking long-term value a consistency of message that suggests the techo’s climate commitments are not a seasonal gesture but a structural shift, even if the road to net zero remains long and diesel-drenched.
In September 2025, Nigeria strengthened its climate goals, committing to reduce emissions by 32% by 2030 while promoting greener jobs, innovation, and a fair transition to a low-carbon economy.
Before then, MTN Nigeria was working to expand its own climate efforts.
In its 2024 Sustainability Report, the company disclosed an 11% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2021 levels.
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