Smile Telecoms Holdings Ltd says it is expanding its new voice service to Tanzania and Uganda following the successful Nigeria launch of its SmileVoice and SmileUnlimited.
[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”20″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” bgcolor=”#” color=”#” bcolor=”#” arrow=”yes”]The new voice foray by Smile follows the company’s announcement in September 2015 of the raising of $365 million of debt and equity funding, the first tranche of which has been applied to significantly expand Smile’s existing 4G LTE mobile broadband networks, according to Charnley.[/quote]Smile, which owns and operates 4G LTE mobile broadband networks in the 800MHz band in Nigeria, and in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands in Tanzania and Uganda, says its Nigeria customers and other operating markets customers can now enjoy the SmileVoice and SmileUnlimited services.
Irene Charnley, Smile Group’s Chief Executive Officer, says the roll-out of the company’s new services in Nigeria will be followed by similar offerings in Tanzania and Uganda. In addition, Smile is set to launch its services in the DRC in 2016.
The new voice foray by Smile follows the company’s announcement in September 2015 of the raising of $365 million of debt and equity funding, the first tranche of which has been applied to significantly expand Smile’s existing 4G LTE mobile broadband networks, according to Charnley.
According to Smile, SmileVoice is a free mobile app that enables customers with any Android or Apple iPhone device to make SuperClear voice calls over Smile’s 4G LTE networks. Having the SmileVoice app on your mobile is like having a second SIM card in your phone. SmileUnlimited provides customers with unlimited access for 30 days over Smile’s SuperFast 4G LTE broadband network.
The company claims it is the first mobile provider in Africa to offer Voice over 4G LTE to customers with VoLTE-capable handsets and the first mobile operator to launch a free SmileVoice App to enable customers who do not have access to VoLTE-capable handsets to access its SuperClear voice services.
“We made our first Voice over LTE calls in Nigeria during beta-testing in October 2015 and the feedback from our existing customers since our soft-launch early February has been extremely positive. Thousands of our customers now make national and international voice calls using their data bundles,” says Charnley about the company’s launch of voice services in the Nigerian market.
The company says that SmileVoice will provide customers with the ability to use their data bundles to make voice, video calls and send SMSs to any number locally and internationally.
All SmileVoice calls are charged in MBs to an active data bundle and equated to a local per second call rate, says Charnley who explains that any unlimited offering is subject to a fair usage policy (FUP) which ensures that connectivity will be maintained throughout the 30-day period, albeit at declining speeds once the generous FUP is reached. It also provides for the speed to be increased again by the simple purchase of another data bundle, she adds.
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