MTN boosts network to cope with climbing demand

South African-backed cellco MTN Uganda plans to invest USD80 million on improving network quality by the end of the year. The Daily Monitor cites the cellco’s chief technical officer Rami Farah as saying that the company is looking to ‘ensure consistently reliable network quality for all existing customers and also to attract many more new subscribers.’ MTN, Uganda’s largest cellco by subscribers at end-June 2012, has installed 68 transmission sites over the last six months and has commissioned twelve new capacity sites in the near future to cover ‘areas considered as blind spots.’ Subscriber growth prompted by reductions in tariffs has strained the capabilities of the cellco’s network and drawn the ire of sector regulator the Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) which claims that none of the nation’s six operators are currently meeting the minimum quality of service (QoS) requirements.