Wim-Vanhelleputte-CEO-MTN-Uganda

MTN has revealed that it will switch off unregistered customers even before the government’s deadline of 30th August 2017.

The announcement comes as the deadline for simcard registration extended by government in April this year clocks down to only 9 days.

This was revealed by the MTN chief executive officer, Mr.Wim Vanhelleputte, while appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on ICT and National guidance chaired by the Tororo County MP, Annet Nyakecho.
The committee was on Monday meeting with officials from telecommunications companies of MTN, Afritel, K2 and Airtel to assess their progress on the verification and registration of Simcards in the country.

Mr.Vanhelleputte said that MTN will close the simcard registration on 26th August to have enough time to sort out unregistered subscribers warning customers to be compliant of the 30th August 2017 deadline to avoid switching off those fully verified.

He told the committee that about 700,000 MTN clients are at risk of being disconnected starting 26th this month to heed to the UCC guideline that no unregistered simcards should be on air by 30th midnight or else the companies’ are at risk.

However, MPs who included; Kampala Central’s Muhammad Nsereko, Gideon Onyango of Samia Bugwe, Kato Lubwama of Lubaga South among others questioned where MTN gets the mandate to act contrary to government’s deadline before describing the attempt as illegal.

The K2 Telcom’s Corporate and Communication Affairs Manager, Livingstone Kiataka, said that government should consider giving more time for simcard registration and verification because there are still a group of people who have not registered their simcards.

The Member of Parliament for Rubaga South, Paul Kato Lubwama, said that government should consider legalising the sale of Simcards by vendors as a way of creating jobs for youths.

MTN’s CMO Mapula Bodibe personally verifies registered customers in Luwero Kasana after the launch of ReadyPay

MPs noted that the current system used for registration is ineffective in ensuring public security.
They say that it is not easy to trace a crime due to the lack of an application programming interface (API) which would be a go between the operators and the National Identification and Registration Authority by placing a photo on the data provided by the person registering.

According to data given by the telecom companies, 26% of Airtel clients and 7% of MTN risk being disconnected if no more time frame is accorded for the simcard registration exercise as pleaded by the service providers while in the committee.

It is estimated that about 100 billion shillings will be lost by MTN if those numbers are switched off.

The post MTN to switchoff subscribers before official August 30th deadline as 700,000 simcards remain unregistered first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

picture courtesy of pctechmag.com

In 2009 MTN launched Mobile Money services in Uganda and since then its been a story of moving from glory to glory. In the first year of its launch, Uganda registered one of the fastest growth rates in the use of Mobile Financial Services ever recorded in a single year. No wonder that not long after it was launched the other telecom companies started providing the same services.

The numbers have over the years grown even bigger and passed the 50% threshold of users  .

However, despite the success, there still exist barriers that hamper the mobile financial service business in Uganda chief of which is the lack of adequate laws to regulate the business. Last week in a press conference MTN Chief Executive Officer, Brian Gouldie expressed concern over the existing laws on mobile money which he believes cannot adequately regulate the business.

The law which regulates Mobile Money services at the moment is the Bank of Uganda Mobile Money Guidelines 2013.

Though the guidelines are fairly detailed and should sufficiently address the gaps in regulation, it is arguable that they are not legally enforceable, particularly against Telecom Companies. Telecom Companies are regulated by Uganda Communication Commission (Section 5 of the Uganda Communications Act, 2013) and therefore the Bank of Uganda has no power to regulate their activities be it the provision of mobile money services or otherwise.

Central Bank is only mandated under S.4(2) (J) Bank of Uganda Act to supervise, regulate and control financial institutions in Uganda not the business of telecommunication companies. There’s therefore a lacuna in the law. True, telecom Companies are partnering with institutions licensed by the Bank of Uganda and at that point the guidelines may be embraced as relevant. However, there is need for a more concrete and substantive law on this crucial service because the subsidiary legislation that exists raises questions on its enforce-ability anyway.

The post Uganda in need of laws to regulate mobile money services first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Officiating at the ground-breaking ceremony, MTN Chief Executive Officer Themba M. Khumalo and Roko Chairman Rainer Kohler said the project would cost close to US$ 110million in civil works construction, and telecommunications equipment.

He said that the civil and switch fitting works alone on the new Switch will cost US$6million, to give o MTN  subscribers in Uganda the best quality telecommunications services possible.

Themba Khumalo, MTN Uganda CEO

He added that he actual equipment to be installed in the Switch Room and the entire complex shall be in excess of US$104million .

MTN Uganda currently operates five Switching centres, three of which are in Kampala at Mbuya and on Plot 44/45 Kampala road, and three Regional Switches in Mbarara, Masindi and Tororo.

He said that the Mutundwe Switch will serve for about three to five years before it is at full capacity – especially at our rate of growth.

He  said that  currently have 7 million subscribers on the MTN Network, 500,000 of whom have joined in the last three months. With our continued roll-out of highly innovative products and services, we expect subscriber numbers and usage to increase significantly, but the number and nature of any future switching centres shall be dictated by the needs of the business.

Khumalo said the new Switching Centre would allow for the network capacity to easily accommodate more than 10million active subscribers.

He said that this  Switch will be the largest Switching Centre in the MTN Uganda Network. Construction will take nine months and we trust that it will be of the highest quality – which is why we have contracted M/S Roko Construction.

Roko Chairman Rainer Kohler said his company would carry out the contracted works with the highest degree of professionalism and added that they will do a good job on this project, as usual .

Last week, MTN Uganda officially opened an ultra-modern Customer Service Centre at the Forest Mall, bringing its investments in Uganda closer to the US$1billion mark since the company launched operations in 1998.

The post MTN Uganda launches switch to improve telecommunications services first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.