The Ugandan Communications Commission Executive Director, Geoffrey Mutabazi has reiterated that Ugandans will have 100% telephone coverage by 2019. The question is how? The answer is national roaming.
Through an interview with the Daily Monitor, the Ed highlighted the upcoming national roaming agreement to thank as telephone subscribers will roam from one network to the other without the need to switch SIM cards.
What is Roaming?
Roaming refers to a mobile phone being used outside the range of its home network by connecting to another available cell network.
Let us say you are an Airtel subscriber in an area where there is no Airtel signal but MTN, you will therefore be switched to MTN.
It mostly happens when one travels from one country to another but this time around, it will be within Uganda’s borders.
And the cost implications?
Asked about any costs to the users, Mr Mutabazi said that there would be cost implications but at least Ugandans will have 24 hour connectivity. However, there was no mention of how much this will be so we can only wait till it is effected.
The upcoming national roaming will all be possible because of the new licensing regime which will require all telecoms to have coverage in all Ugandan parishes with a base minimum of 3G connectivity.
He went on to say that by 2019, all telecoms will have upgraded their networks to 4G (Hello UTL). This shall mark the national roaming with more base stations in most Ugandan Parishes.
However the more base stations a network has spread across different parishes, the more its signal can be picked up by its subscribers and overtime, this will overcome the need for national roaming but as it stands, it is a necessary evil for telecoms whose national coverage is still lacking.
