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UTL invests $10million for NGN expansion, chooses Huawei (Uganda)

  • November 3rd, 2008
  • 5:49 am

Uganda Telecommunication Company plans to invest over $10million to expand its Next Generation Network (NGN). The company chooses Huawei Technologies, China’s leading telecom solution provider to replace 33 Remote Line Units which will be spread all over Uganda with new soft switches for better services. The new system provided by Huwaei will be data oriented and be made up of a central information management centre and multi- service access network making the services faster and easier.

“UTL being the only telecom company with an NGN network gives us the competitive advantage of being able to flexibly and cost effectively offer cutting edge products and services to our clients,” said Eng. Abdulbaset Elazzabi, Uganda Telecom managing director.
The new system will be implemented first in Kampala region by 2009 end, and will increase telco’s network capacity giving greater reliability.

   

MTN, uganda telecom and WARID battling over prices!(Uganda)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 10:37 am

MTN, uganda telecom (utl) and WARID having tussle over prices. Low rates are being offered by each company within the same network to lure subscribers. MTN recently launched MTN Zone, a tariff structure that offers discounts of up to 99%. The more capacity available, the greater the discount at the time of making the call, the Chief Commercial Officer, Erik Van Veen, said. Discount varies according to the amount of traffic in particular areas. The more phone usage in  an area, the lower the discount and vice versa. The discounts are on a per second basis.

Newcomers are trying to pull MTN’s dominance from the market by giving heavy dicounts. WARID’s, Megabonus pushes the bar even higher in the tariff war. Under the promotion, subscribers can talk for free 24 hours after loading airtime. The free calls are only to WARID subscribers. Zain launched Chacha where calls within the network cost sh3 per second.

Uganda expected to achieve 6 Million subscribers by year end (Uganda)

  • July 21st, 2008
  • 1:11 pm

Uganda’s telecoms regulator, UCC expects the country to achieve six million subscribers by the end of this year, this will be largely due to market liberalisation.

According to Isaac Kalembe, a media and public relations specialist at UCC, With the coming in of new operator, Warid, and HiTS are expected to roll out soon, the figure could rise to six million by the end of this year.

The country has five mobile operators, the two incumbents UTL and MTN while Zain (formerly Celtel) was licensed in 2005. Warid launched its network in Februrary this year while HiTS Telecom is still waiting to launch its network.

According to figures from a database, the country ended Q1 ‘08 with some 5.2 million mobile subscribers - representing a population penetration level of 17.4%

Uganda Telecom (UTL) recently launched a 3G network covering Greater Kampala, Entebbe and Jinja.

India’s Reliance Communication has received Spectrum allocation and plans to launch its Mobile services by end of 2008. The company says that following the acquisition - for an unspecified amount - it plans to spend up to US$500 million on building out the telecoms network.

That will bring the country to six active networks by the end of this year.

   

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.

 

 

   

UTL gets green light to launch VoIP

  • July 2nd, 2007
  • 1:02 pm

Indian joint venture operation United Telecom Limited (UTL), the first privately-owned operator licensed to offer services in the Nepalese telecoms market, has been given the go-ahead by the Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA to launch a voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) service in the country, paving the way for cheaper international long-distance (ILD) calls for consumers. UTL - a joint venture between India’s MTNL, VSNL and Telecommunications Consultants India - and Nepali partner Nepal Venture Ltd, has now implemented a feasibility study to target partners and phone routes for the service. It says the study will take a month to complete and that the initial launch costs will amount to around USD2 million to introduce the technology