Telecoms to be penalised for charging dropped calls

Dec 19, 2012

Telecommunication companies which charge users on dropped calls and send them unsolicited SMS messages, will face a penalty, the executive director of Uganda Communication Commission, Godfrey Mutabazi, has said.

By Juliet Waiswa

Telecommunication companies which charge users on dropped calls and send them unsolicited SMS messages, will face a penalty, the executive director of Uganda Communication Commission, Godfrey Mutabazi, has said.

The UCC will announce the penalty in two months following several complaints from the public.

Mutabazi made the remarks at the launch of a new telecommunication company, Suretelcom, at Kibuli. According to Mutabazi, UCC is in the process of drafting new terms for service providers in an attempt to improve telecom services in the country.

“We are equally concerned about this issue. We met stakeholders a few weeks ago about changes in the regulation of telecom companies,” Mutabazi said.

He said UCC has imported quality service and monitoring equipment to help monitor and enforce quality benchmarks like the number of blocked and dropped calls.

Suretelcom, Uganda’s newest telecommunications provider, conducted its first Ugandan GSM call on Friday. This takes the number of telecom companies from five to six.

In July 2007, UCC and the then minister of Information communication Technology granted a licence to Suretelcom for both public infrastructure provider and and Public Service Provider (PSP).

Suretelcom is a subsidiary of the International Telecommunication company, Timeturns Holding.

It is currently operating in Nepal, Combodia, Burundi, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, DRC and now Uganda. Nizar Abou, the director Timeturns said they will go on air in six months’ time and will Mutabazi during the launch of suretel, a new telcom company. Right is sajah cover the whole country.

 

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