Uganda’s new telecom services should be introduced slower

New telecommunication services in Uganda should be introduced slower than current levels in order to allow the market to deal with services already available, the country’s top ICT official said.

Nyombi Thembo said over the weekend at the Warid Telecom Experiential Center in the Ugandan capital, that users and customers are not receiving the top available options as a result of telecom operators pushing out new technology and services before users are able to become comfortable with what is already on the market.

“The situation gets worse when telecoms fail to deal with perpetual “irritants” like dropped calls, bad network and excessive charges among others,” said Thembo.

According to Thembo, the government is getting concerned over the deteriorating quality of service in the telecom industry, thus there in need to fix such problems sooner than later.

“It is self-defeating to introduce new services at the expense of the quality of the existing products,” he added.

He argued that telecoms have over the years grown their subscriber numbers but have not taken trouble to invest in appropriate technology that can accommodate the rapid growth in the sector. This has resulted into network congestion.

Thembo said the Uganda Communication Commission will begin to compel telecom companies into consulting consumers before they introduce any new products into the market.

Andrew Matapare