After a long 15 months of radio silence, Smile Uganda has finally come forward to explain the reason behind their service outage. And boy, do they have a story to tell!
First and foremost, Smile Uganda has come out in a press release to offer their sincerest apologies to their valued customers and the general public for the inconvenience caused by the outage. They acknowledge that this update should have come sooner, but they wanted to wait until certain legal processes were concluded before sharing the juicy details.
So what happened? Well, it all started when American Towers Corporation (ATC) decided to pull the plug on Smile’s network – illegally! This went against ATC’s license obligations, industry best practices, and most importantly, the well-being of the Ugandan people.
But wait, there’s more! Prior to this outrageous act, Smile had been involved in commercial disputes with ATC since 2018 over discriminatory pricing practices and unfair power billing practices. In fact, ATC was collecting around fifty percent more than the tariffs set by the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Uganda – yikes!
These disputes were dutifully referred to arbitration in accordance with the underlying contracts. The arbitration process was initially scheduled to conclude in June 2021 but was extended into 2022. While the resulting award was in ATC’s favor, they immediately disconnected Smile’s sites without any notice after the issue of the arbitral award on January 31, 2022. This led to a complete shutdown of Smile’s 4G LTE services by February 1, 2022.
But Smile Uganda didn’t take this lying down! They pursued legal action by applying to the High Court to set aside the arbitral award. And guess what? The High Court granted Smile’s application and set aside the award on April 11, 2023, citing delays in issuing of the award and concerns about the arbitrator’s partiality. To date, ATC has not appealed the ruling.
Despite all this legal drama, Smile Uganda attempted settlement negotiations with ATC but faced unyielding inflexibility from them. Consequently, Smile Uganda terminated all contracts with ATC and requested the return of its equipment so it could resume its services with an alternative Tower partner. But ATC has been stubborn and continues to hold Smile hostage.
ATC’s actions have caused significant damage to Smile’s investment in Uganda, amounting to approximately USD 120 million. Not only have they impacted Smile’s operations and denied consumers a credible service, but they have also affected jobs and livelihoods dependent on Smile Uganda’s presence on the market.
Smile Uganda is committed to pursuing justice and restitution and expresses its sincere gratitude to its loyal customers and the public at large for their support throughout this process. They will continue with legal action against ATC challenging the service shutdown and refusal to return its equipment. Further updates will be provided in due course as Smile keeps hope high that once this matter is resolved, services will be restored.
Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting saga when ATC gives its version of the story!
