Uganda telecom has been some sort of prodigal son in the telecom space, hell broke loose and it was on the verge of collapse only to be saved by the government after a thorough audit, debt conversion into equity, an administration revamp among others.
After this, what seemed as a struggling entity finally came to good books with most stakeholders and at least some hope was instilled in most.
While this went on,there was no clear business strategy at least communicated to the outside world but government has now laid out a new clear strategy on how it hopes to revitalize the ailing telco.
The government through the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance has tweeted a seemingly clear strategy to get Uganda’s oldest telecom company a clear footing in the country’s competitive telecom space, a strategy that has since been approved by the cabinet.
Cabinet approved strategies to revamp UTL which include a) Sourcing for a competent investor b) Extension of UTL License for 20 years c) UCC to expand UTL spectrum d) Give UTL unlimited access & use of the National backbone infrastructure #CabinetMediaBriefing @FrankTumwebazek
— Ministry of ICT&NG (@MoICT_Ug) May 2, 2018
Included among these is sourcing for a competent investor, of course to inject some monies (capital) in the telecom, extension of UTL’S license by 20 years, UCC expanding UTL’s spectrum and this is seen as a maneuver for UTL to jump ship to 4G and competitively come to a similar footing with the likes of MTN, Airtel and Africell whose networks are live with 4G LTE and lastly to give UTL access to the national broadband infrastructure (NBI) which currently is under the jurisdiction of NITA.
However with the communication coming from the ministry of ICT and National Government where NITA falls, it seems the qualms have finally been buried and the two can now work together.
And what does this mean to UTL?
We haven’t established what kind of spectrum will be accorded to UTL which means it will get the most valuable yet scarce resource in telecommunications and it’s most likely to be extended to UTL. An added advantage is using the already established NBI fiber infrastructure means UTL won’t have to invest more in extending it’s 4G footprint in the country, as the NBI spans across a large chunk of the country. Add the 20 year license extension in the mix with the current license expiring in 2020 and this leads us to the very first point of attracting competent investors as government plan makes the investment climate sweet for UTL not forgetting the monopoly instilled by government directives to have control/manage government’s telecommunications business giving it an already established customer base.
