BeMOBILE engage Ericsson in expansion project
Thato Kala | Thursday August 28, 2014 07:00
Paul Taylor, chief executive officer of beMOBILE parent company, Botswana Telecommunications Corporations Limited (BTCL) said he was upbeat the subsidiary is on track to eventually be the market leader in the provision of not only the widest coverage, but the clearest.
The project is expected to be complete before the end of the year. BTC believes the project has the potential to boost be MOBILE’s subscriber base, which is currently estimated to be slightly over 400,000.
“We have set ourselves apart in the market as a service provider that customers across the various groupings of low and high income levels can count on for the widest coverage,” Taylor explained.
He said beMOBILE remains rooted in its resolve to avail market products that allow the company to harness the best of what the modern telecommunications industry can offer.
“The information highway is a cocktail of opportunities that people across the world can and indeed do use to give their life a facelift.
It is our duty as beMOBILE to make sure that the information highway is seamlessly accessible to the majority, if not all, Batswana and those who are residents of the country,” Taylor said.
Ericsson Botswana, which has been in the country for over 20 years, announced a few years ago that it wants to be among the first tenants of Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH) Technology Park.
The company is involved in the government’s Nteletsa programme of taking telecommunication services to rural areas. It currently provides Botswana’s three mobile phone service companies and BTC with base station and software equipment. It was also involved in the multilateral Seacom and Eassy submarine optic cable projects. Outside Africa, Ericsson is in 175 markets across the world and is linked to 350 million mobile subscribers globally.
BTC head of communications, Tiro Kganela said beMOBILE has made inroads into the market with some of their products.
The products include the be20 prepaid scratch cards, considered the market’s trailblazer. “A client who buys a be20 scratch card during the week is assured of 120 minutes of free calls during the weekend,” he said.
Subsequent to the success of be20, beMOBILE delivered another product, be30. With be30, a purchase of P30 airtime gives subscribers additional free minutes during the week, which extend to the weekend.
BeMOBILE also offers the ‘night owl product, which allows customers to communicate at 60 thebe per minute throughout the night. “It is a product designed to encourage people to continue communicating even at night. In contrast, customers pay P1.32 per minute during the day. But still, this is by far, the cheapest in the market,” said Kganela.