Some subscribers experienced a blackout for close to six hours as the company migrated to the new equipment expected to help the mobile company to expand its customer base.
“The new Home Location Register (HLR) is the main database of all our subscribers, containing all pertinent user information,” explained the company's Chief Technical Officer David Chetty. He said the new equipment would enable the company to offer new and wider range of excellent products.
“This also means the Network will have a bigger capacity to accommodate our planned network expansion and our ever-growing subscriber base,” he said adding that the network upgrade and expansion in intended to offer customers a superior service.
The company's CEO, Werner Schrijver, said they intend to enable people and business institutions to realise their full potential. “In doing so our mobile services will contribute to the growth and development of the country's economy,” he said.
The new switch, which has been supplied by Alcatel, would enable the company to offer data services such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) among others.
“We are increasing our transmission backbone from Blantyre to Mzuzu through capacity upgrade of 27 sites,” said Chetty, who pledged to complete 40 new sites by mid-July and 60 new sites by December.
“During this time, customers may at times experience service interruption and we endeavour to communicate any service interruptions in advance and every effort will be made to minimise these disruptions,” he added.
