Most Ugandans are staying home either working, streaming or downloading movies. Telecom companies are making a killing and are registering a huge grown in internet data and voice sales and this is coming at a time when other sectors of the economy are not doing well.
In a recent call with Mr VG Somasekhar, the Airtel managing director, while presenting a status update on the telecom’s mast numbers and 4G technology, said without giving details, that;
“We have seen increased usage of data and voice services. There has been difficulty in touch points where customers can get airtime, which is why we are introducing digital, me-to-you and more initiatives will be introduced,”
Airtel has been cagey about how much they have made in data and voice sales since the lockdown was announced in March.
When it comes to MTN — Mr Wim Vanhelleputte, the chief executive officer, told Daily Monitor the telecom had seen an humogous growth in demand for data, which has degraded quality of its services in areas of Naalya and Kisaasi, among others where the telecom giant is currently increasing network capacity equipment worth $25m. Such areas has seen a traffic increase of over 40% in data traffic usage.
This is something that has forced these telecom companies to re-optimize their traffic capacity in residential areas to carry the same traffic that was carried in Kampala before the lockdown. This can also be confirmed with recent Google statistics (see above image).
MTN and Airtel carry 30.46% and 35.4% of the data traffic in Uganda. The issues never stopped with MTN alone as Airtel customers have also reported a reduction in data speeds, which could be attributed to increased traffic.
According to the daily Monitor, one Kaka Mzamir, a user on Facebook wrote to Airtel: “My concern is about your network these ends of Kakifuma, Ndese, Kasawo. The network is poor please work on that.”
Mr Somasekhar said while the telecom cannot solve all issues immediately, customers will be assisted by the network team upon receipt of complaint.
How telecom is affected by COVID-19
Not all is rosy for the telecommunications sector, According to Mr Somasekhar –the number of new Simcard subscribers,has stagnated and currently stands at 25.4 million.
Similary, MTN voice services, while marginally impacted at the beginning, Mr Vanhelleputte said, is now slowly declining because of reduction in people’s purchasing power as many are holding onto their cash in anticipation.
Additionally, he said, the MTN mobile money segment, had started recording increase growth, especially in urban centres.
