Competition among Uganda's telecom firms has been tense over the past year, with a price war waging almost out of control. Now, companies say the key to the future is in the Internet and money services. Telecom company Interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities of other networks. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging to its customer, or to a connection between two (or more) carriers. The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the telecoms regulatory body, set the call rates at a minimum of shs129 ($0.065) per minute. This led to one of the players, Warid Telecom, to slash her call rates to shs3 per second across all networks. It led some people to migrate to Warid from other networks. A week later, other sector players MTN, Airtel and Uganda Telecom reduced their rates tremendously. Now, that the call rates price war is seemingly saturated, it is anticipated 2011 may see the battle shifting towards the mobile money transfers and internet service provision. Manoj Kohli, the Chief Executive Officer (International) and Joint Managing Director Bharti Airtel was at hand, by announcing that this year, their customers will experience a new brand; enjoy superior quality of service, reliability, innovation and affordability wherever they live, work or travel across the world. “The company will deliver innovative and affordable products and services across the continent, products such as airtel money and invest in community development by supporting schools across Africa.” Bharti Airtel is the world's fifth largest telecom company and has its sights set on improving the African telecom infrastructure this year. BM
