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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Uganda Telecom'

Uganda Telecom offers Voice SMS for $0.08

  • November 19th, 2008
  • 7:02 am

Uganda Telecom launches Voice SMS service for its 1.5 million subscribers. With Voice SMS, subscriber uses voice instead of text or pictures to relay messages via any device with GSM.

According to Uganda Telecom official, “You don’t have to peck at keys, and on the receiving end, you decide when to listen, even when you are in a place where you cannot carry on a conversation.”

An external partner is hosting Uganda Telecom’s voice SMS service and is automatically provisioned to all subscribers.

This service does not require infrastructure upgrades or back-end provisioning by operators, nor does it require handset configuration for consumers. Additionally, there is no investment costs involved, as the business model is based on a revenue-sharing arrangement with the host partner.

To send a voice SMS, subscribers must dial *88, followed by the recipient’s number. The service then sends an SMS alert to the recipient, who dials a given number to pick up the message. The length of the Voice SMS is limited to 30 seconds. The subscriber will be charged 150 Ugandan shillings (US$0.08) for sending Voice SMS, while a text SMS within the Uganda Telecom network costs 133 shillings.

The service of Voice SMS is well accepted in many Asian countries where local languages are not supported by the text SMS interface. It is as useful for illiterates as it is for literates.

Warid Telecom reaches the mark of 1mln susbcribers in Uganda (Uganda)

  • October 10th, 2008
  • 5:32 am

Warid Telecom new participant in Uganda’s highly competitive telecommunications sector has reached the subscriber base of 1 million within eight months of commercial service. Chief Executive of Warid Telecom, Zul Javaid,  believes that the jump in subscribers since March, when the company launched, can be attributed to aggressive marketing. “For us, this is a high milestone”. “We have hit our target three months before we intended to,” added Javaid.

The company aims to hit the subscriber base 10,000,00 after 12 months of it operation. Javaid further said, “We think the success we have had has been driven by giving the Ugandan population what they want, and that is the response that the market has given us in such a short time.” By saying that ‘Giving the population what it wants’, this involves Warid’s US$250 million GSM  network, according to Javaid. Warid Telecom has built the network in order to take on MTN Uganda, Uganda Telecom and Zain Uganda, all of whom having been operating in the country for more than five years.

Javaid accentuates that Warid has only counted active lines in its statistics, as some companies include dormant lines among their subscriber numbers. In 1998, Uganda had just 12,500 phone lines but now it boasts off vivacious mobile market and is anticipateing to reach the subscriber base of 6.8 million by the end of 2008.

Reliance Communications wins telecom licence (Uganda)

  • December 19th, 2007
  • 6:32 am

India’s Reliance Communications (RCOM) has announced it has won licences which will allow it to become Uganda’s sixth telecom operator. According to reports carried by local newspapers, RCOM has been awarded both public infrastructure provider and public service provider concessions, which will allow it to offer wireless, fixed, internet, national and international long-distance services, in addition to WiMAX and Wi-Fi services. RCOM plans to launch in the east African country by the third quarter of 2008. The newspaper reports said that RCOM will invest INR8 billion (USD202 million) to roll out fixed and wireless infrastructure capable of allowing it to compete with other Ugandan operators including MTN, Uganda Telecom, HITS Telecom, Celtel and Warid Telecom.

   

Uganda Telecom awards GSM/EDGE/UMTS deal to Alcatel (Uganda)

  • August 24th, 2007
  • 9:48 am

Alcatel-Lucent has signed a contract with Uganda Telecom for the extension of its GSM/EDGE mobile network and for the deployment of the first 3G UMTS/HSPA network in Uganda, one of the first such networks in East Africa. It will be deployed in time for the Summit of Head of States of the Commonwealth to be held in Uganda in November. Alcatel-Lucent also will increase network coverage and improve overall service quality for Uganda Telecom.

Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will supply its comprehensive radio networking solution including base stations, radio network and base station controllers (RNC/BSC), wireless network management system solutions and engineering tools. Alcatel-Lucent also will be responsible for network design and complete network deployment, including network integration and maintenance services. Additionally Alcatel-Lucent will provide a new generation of microwave systems to optimize the transmission of voice and data traffic from the base stations to the core network, with the capability to adapt quickly and efficiently to the growth in traffic and services.

   

UTL landlines increase by 20%

  • July 10th, 2007
  • 11:48 am

Uganda Telecom (UTL) landline subscribers increased by 20% in the first five months of 2007. ‘Uganda Telecom connected nearly 20,000 new landline users in the last few months to reach an all-time-high of over 115,000 landlines from below 96,000 at the end of last year,’ Ssemakula said. He added that over 58% of the landlines are used as public payphones.