10 years of reliable Internet

By Richard Wetaya

James Byaruhanga

When a local company gets a niche in the cutthroat world of big telecom businesses, it is cause for celebration. For many companies, 10 years means they have weathered many storms and not only survived, but continue to thrive.

Roke Telkom fits that bill, having made a decade this year. The locally owned telecommunications company has been in existence since 2006. "Roke Telkom was the first Internet service provider to roll out our own fibre network in Uganda.

Roke Telecommunications Company was licensed by the Uganda Communications Commission as a Public Service Provider (capacity resale, voice and data) and Public Infrastructure Provider in 2006. The company started off with four staff members, but now employs over 130 Ugandans.

If we assume an extra 10 years with these kinds of developments, we shall reach thousands of Ugandans," says James Byaruhanga, the chief operations officer. Byaruhanga notes that Roke was the first telecommunications company to roll out a fibre connection between Uganda and Tanzania.

"Roke also has the biggest WiFi network in the country and the cheapest data at sh1,000, unlimited, for 24 hours. We want to extend this cheap Internet across all market segments and all regions of the country and Sub-Saharan Africa. Other than that, we also carry the biggest amount of international branch to head office circuits in the country."

Children of Good Samaritan Orphanage in Nakiwogo Entebbe receive gifts and supplies from Roke Telkom

Byaruhanga says, "Roke has its own extensive fibre network and fixed wireless network, connecting both multi branch enterprises and residences. This technology ensures that transmitted data is secure."

Roke operates Roke Vsat, an affordable service delivered with a transmitter/receiver and a satellite modem. There is also the Roke data hosting service operated through the Virtual Private servers. This package is for clients that need dedicated space with dedicated ram resources. For people who want to work from home, there is Roke classic with 10GB, valid for 60 days.

Roke mini is also perfect for people who work from home. It comes at a lower cost than Roke Classic with 5GB and is valid for 30 days. Roke deluxe, on the other hand, offers robust Internet connectivity to SMEs. Byaruhanga says it is a worthwhile offering for those who require Internet connectivity, but do not have the same access to resources as large scale corporations.

Roke Telkom staff get ready to take on the general cleaning of the Bugolobi market recently

Connection to Rokespots

Connecting to a Rokespot is easy. One has to check their Wifi Menu. Go to your Wifi menu, look out for the Rokespot, connect to it and there will be a notification. Choose that notification. The notification will guide you to the portal page. The portal or sign in page is where one is prompted to enter their vital statistics if they are first time users.

Future plans

Byaruhanga say Roke is in discussions with town councils like Mbale, Lira, Soroti and Gulu to provide Internet to their district headquarters. "We want to make sure all metro locations in the country have fibre connections. There is no high speed Internet in many parts of the country because of wifi. Uganda is a stage where people should have wifi in homes. We are looking at multi dwelling suburbs estates and want to extend fibre cables to these places," he says.

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Marketing manager on why Roke is unique

Grace Namutebi, Roke Telkom's marketing manager believes the company has a lot to offer. This is what she had to say:

How different are Roke Telkom's services in comparison to those already in existence?

We can break these down into three; Roke at Home, Roke at Work and Roke on the Go. Underneath Roke at Home, you have your smaller packages like Roke Classic and Roke Mini that are ideal for a smaller family unit with basic Internet needs. Roke at Work has products like Roke Premium and Deluxe designed for corporate companies that are in need of a much larger capacity to run their day to day business, though we do have Roke Unlimited, which is crafted specifically for small and medium enterprises. We also have a number of other business and data management services that fall under Roke at Work, such as Local and International Virtual Private Networks, Roke VSAT, Colocation and Data Hosting. Lastly, Rokespots, our affordable, accessible and popular public WiFi; you can find the Rokespots in and around Kampala, Mbarara, Jinja and now Mukono, Mbale and Masaka. There is a product or service for every Internet user, whatever you are looking for, whatever you need or wherever you need a solution.

What stands out as the company's premier achievement and what has enabled your success?

Roke Telkom has managed to build one of the most superior fibre networks in East and Central Africa. A key factor to the success of the company has been the ability to adjust to the needs of Ugandans in a timely and innovative manner. In 2015, we entered a partnership with Google that has enabled us to increase our fibre footprint and reach more Ugandans within public places with high quality WiFi at affordable prices.

How does one get to access the Roke Internet service or the Roke Hotspot?

One can access Rokespot WiFi in many public places around Kampala by selecting the ‘ROKESPOT' option in the WiFi menu and paying using any of the available options on the portal, including mobile money, Payway, Pebuu and voucher cards.

How reliable are the Rokespots and what are the speeds like?

Our Rokespots are on our fibre network, which means they are reliable and therefore speeds are high. Each user is allocated their own bandwidth so, your personal speed user experience will not be affected. We have over 350 Rokespots in Kampala, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara, Mbale and the prices are sh1,000 for one day, sh5,000 for one week and sh18,000 for one month. We will continue to create more Rokespots around the country.
 

Roke Telkom staff handing over a television to the children of Bless a Child Foundation in Bwaise this month

What are Roke Telkom's business and data management services about?

Local virtual private networks
We have over 15 in-country points of presence through which we can offer branch-to-branch and branch-tomulti- branch connectivity. Through our extensive fibre and wireless footprint, we can connect both multi-branch enterprises and residences to the head office and our technology ensures that your transmitted data is secure, always.

International virtual private networks
Our International VPN service provides an efficient, scalable and reliable way of connecting your employees to your business network. Through our global network, we are able to provide both fully-managed inter-country and intra-country VPN services, enabling you to connect your offices and branches to share information securely whether they are in Uganda or Rwanda, Tanzania, DRC, Zambia and Kenya.

Roke VSAT
This service is delivered over satellite dishes with a transmit/receive device and a satellite modem. The YahClick Satellite receiver can be mounted on a roof, wall or a pole. Roke VSAT is available in all regions in Uganda at affordable prices. The data centre services include: Colocation We provide space for clients to host their hardware with a minimum space of one rack unit and maximum space of a full rack. The facility is fully equipped with air conditioning, fire suppression, biometric security, CCTV surveillance, power backup and 24-hour armed security. We also provide monitoring services, NOC support and Hot Hands for our data centre clients.

Data Hosting
We offer data hosting services through virtual private servers for clients that need dedicated space with dedicated RAM resources. We also offer space for web hosting at our server farm.

ISP Services
Our ISP services include mail, DNS and Web hosting and Domain server registration.

What does the future look like?
Roke Telecom will continue creating innovative products and services. Clients can look forward to a new package before the end of the year.

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