Investment increases coverage

According to the company's statement, the expansion means that the network can now accommodate a lot more calls at any one time: "Over 2,900 transceivers have been added to the network making it possible for an additional 16,000 simultaneous calls to be made on the network, bringing congestion back down within international best practice benchmarks."

"And in keeping up with the new technology, the Adaptive MultiRate (AMR) technique has been activated on most of our base stations enabling better quality and reducing dropped calls to less than 2%," said the company's chief commercial officer Eric Van Veen.

He told journalists that the company has built an additional 90 new sites during the upgrade, increasing its coverage footprint to new, previously uncovered areas.

"This coverage expansion has provided access to telecommunications to another 1.3 million people who were previously not served, with nearly 400 base stations sites throughout the country, the company provides telecommunication services in more than 200 towns to over 75% of Uganda's population."

"The expansion has ensured that MTN maintains its significant network coverage advantage both in terms of national breadth and urban dept," he added.

"We recognize that continued expansion of the network is a commitment we make to all our customers, we have a national responsibility to ensure that the population has access to the services and as a result we have introduced new rates structures," he said.

He said the lower rates that have come during the festive season have been made possible by the successful completion of the US$60 million project.

Published courtesy of