Uganda government to renew licence based on Quality of Service (Africa)
Uganda’s telecom companies have reportedly been issued a warning that the licence renewal applications will be considered on the basis of the quality of service (QoS) offered. According to reports, Nyombi Thembo, State Minister (Information Technology), has said that there is no way they will renew a licence for a player offering poor services. He added that the government’s aim is to guarantee value for money by driving improvements in the quality of the services offered to the customers.
As per sources, the report on QoS released by the Uganda Communication Commission last week reflected the poor performance of all the mobile network operators in the region wherein all six operators exceeded the maximum 2 percent rate of calls blocked or dropped. A blocked call is a failed call attempt due to network failure, where as a dropped call is one which gets connected successfully but is terminated ahead of time by the provider. MTN Uganda had the highest number of blocked at 11.1 percent while Airtel Uganda had the highest number of blocked calls at 15.2 percent.
Rwanda completes $95m fibre network
Rwanda has reportedly completed construction of a 2,300 kilometre fibre optic network that links the country to undersea cables running along the east African coast.
The project which was commenced in October 2009 at a cost of $95 million, was set up to increase access to broadband services and attracts foreign investment through business process outsourcing.
According to Ignace Gatare, Minister of Information and Communication Technology, the fibre optic project will initially be operated by an independently-managed government entity on an open access model to accommodate infrastructure sharing with the private ICT services providers. The ultimate goal is to progressively transfer the business to a private business.
Rwanda is a land-locked country with Internet penetration of only 12%. However, Minister Gatare states that the ICT sector in the country generated revenues of US$143 million in 2009, rising by 12% in 2010.
The fibre network connects to undersea cable system at Mombasa in Kenya and Dar es Salam in Tanzania.
The Minister added that initiatives to activate the links have been launched and discussions between Rwanda telecommunication operators that include MTN Rwanda, Tigo Rwanda and Rwandatel and regional cable operators are ongoing.
At a Senate meeting, the minister was asked to increase the awareness to the population on the importance of the use of ICT and made several recommendations, including to extend ICT infrastructure, especially in rural areas; to put more effort in the use of ICT in all sectors and services; to sensitize the population on cyber security of individual data; and to emphasize the quality of education in ICT.
Elsewhere, Google has extended its Gmail SMS chat functionality to add three more African countries to its growing coverage list. Mobile users in Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi can now use Google’s email service via SMS texting.
Gmail users can send and receive SMS messages for free using the service. Non-Gmail users can reply via SMS for regular text charging rates. The networks supporting the service are MTN, Uganda Telecom and Orange (Uganda), Vodacom (Tanzania), and Airtel and TNM (Malawi).
MTN Uganda warns to suspend connections with UTL
MTN Uganda has warned to stop accepting phone calls from its network to Uganda Telecom (UTL) over claims of unpaid bills for termination charges. The company claims it owes US$8.4 million from its commercial rival.
According to MTN, calls between the two networks could be severed as early as next week if the debt is not paid. MTN customers will therefore be unable to place direct calls to UTL subscribers and vice-versa.
As per Fatuma Nalubawa, a Uganda Telecom spokesperson, the company is looking into the matter and will deal with it appropriately. It was a small disagreement but it will be sorted out.
UTL has also been in dispute with Warid Telecom and Airtel Uganda over unpaid termination fees.
Uganda Telecom sued by MTN for contract breach
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A case has been filed against Uganda Telecommunications Ltd (UTL) by MTN Uganda in the Kampala High Court’s Commercial Division for unpaid interconnection fees, seeking UGS7.2 billion (USD3.55 million).
UTL has been accused of breach of contract by MTN which claimed that February 2001 its management entered into an agreement with UTL to interconnect their respective networks, as required by their respective telecoms licences awarded by the Uganda Communications Commission.
According to MTN, in accordance with the interconnection charges that were detailed in the agreement its management issued invoices to UTL, but that the state-owned telco failed to pay them. MTN has asked for a court order compelling UTL to pay the owes plus interest, damages and costs.
Uganda: Country Opens Up Telecoms Infrastructure Market
Uganda has opened up the telecommunications infrastructure market of the country to full competition, thus ending the exclusivity period that has been enjoyed by MTN Uganda, Uganda telecom and Celtel Uganda over the past six years. The end of the monopoly opens up the telecommunications infrastructure market to full competition, ending the exclusivity period that has been enjoyed by MTN Uganda, uganda telecom and Celtel Uganda for the last six years.
MTN and Uganda telecom held National Telecommunication Operator (NTO) licenses, which allowed them to roll out infrastructure for their use as well as for other operators’ use while Celtel Uganda held the Cellular Telecommunications Operator (CTO).
Meawhile, Celtel by virtue of its license was only allowed to put up infrastructure essentially for its own use. Beside the three companies, there are other players who had been allowed to build infrastructure before the 1996 policy framework.
The infrastructure (i.e. plant, equipment and systems associated with the transmission, reception and switching of telecommunication signals) provisioning will open up to full competition from November 1, 2006.
“For purposes of providing a holistic licensing environment (services and infrastructure), the ministry of ICTs has decided to open up the infrastructure market to full competition,” a document highlighting the proposals on a new infrastructure licensing regime for Uganda reads in part.
Up to the end of the exclusivity period, the main infrastructure providers have been MTN, Uganda telecom and Celtel. The rest of the operators, who had mobile infrastructure, rolled it out for their own use, as opposed to making it available for other users as well.
The five-year exclusivity period that limited competition in basic telephony service, cellular telecommunications service and satellite service expired on July 24, 2005.
The decision to open up the infrastructure market follows the May 2006 ministerial guidelines on telecommunications services provision, which became operational on August 14, 2006.
In May however, the guidelines did not cater for the opening up of the infrastructure provision and for purposes of providing a holistic licensing environment, the minister for ICT has acted by opening up that provision.
Following the new guidelines on infrastructure provision, UCC has prepared a corresponding licensing regime and subsequently licences, which shall be issued to the applicants.
The proposed licensing regime will usher in full competition licensing of infrastructure to increase the capacity of affordable modern infrastructure that will enable the majority of Ugandans to be able to access service within reasonable distances.
UCC argues that the regime, while recognising the progress made by the existing operators in providing infrastructure in Uganda, seeks to increase the penetration of infrastructure further than where it is currently.
The regulator hopes that this will enable the majority of Ugandans, especially those in rural areas to be able to access more affordable communication services.
“Competition is the main avenue that the regime is focusing on to achieve this,” UCC’s executive director, Mr. Patrick Masambu told industry players and members of the public at a workshop in Kampala a week ago.
UCC says the regime takes into account operators who have already made investments relating to infrastructure while seeking to ease entry into the infrastructure market.
In Uganda today, infrastructure already in place can be divided into subscriber loop, national and international infrastructure. In general, there is transmission, switching and access infrastructure.
The 1996 telecommunications policy put emphasis on infrastructure as it was found to be most urgently needed and yet it required substantial investment.
As a strategy to achieve rapid infrastructure roll out, government instituted a period of limited competition of five years, in provision of some key services so as to enable the NTOs sufficient time to recoup their investments.
According to UCC, the exclusivity period yielded positive results because Uganda was able to attract credible investors in the sector to take up two NTO licenses and, the NTOs have been able to roll out infrastructure and services.
However, there has been very little competition in the rolling out of infrastructure as a result of the limitation arising out of the 1996 telecom policy.
During the exclusivity period, the licensing of infrastructure was restricted to two NTOs (MTN and UTL), Celtel and those service providers who had been licensed to set up infrastructure, before the 1996 policy.
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These included Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with International Data Gateway (IDGs), wireless local loop and optical fibre cables and third party network providers (AFSAT).
Present coverage of GSM infrastructure is in 745 out of the total 926 sub-counties in the country, which is equivalent of 80% network coverage when computed on a basis of a sub-county.
All existing licensees that are paid up and have installed infrastructure will be required to migrate to the new infrastructure licensing regime at no cost. The new regime will take into account the unique infrastructure requirements Uganda has.
Source- http://allafrica.com
