Star Africa Media, a Chinese company which operates pay TV services in Rwanda is rolling out its operations across other East Africa Community (EAC) countries.

Leo Hao, the company’s Marketing and Sales Director for the Kigali unit said that Star Africa Media last week acquired an operating license to open units in Uganda.

According to Hao, the company has already signed partnership agreements with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) and Tanzania Broadcasting Corp (TBC) to provide digital TV services in Kenya and Tanzania respectively.

"Our CEO was in Burundi and we expect to get a license to operate there soon,” he revealed in an interview with Business Times on Friday.

Star Africa Media started operations in Rwanda last year with an initial financial outlay of above $20 million (Rwf11.3 billion).

Hao said investments in each of the three EAC countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will be higher than what was committed in the Rwandan market.

The media in Uganda on Tuesday quoted Maggie Kigozi, Uganda’s investment Authority Executive Director saying that the company is planning an investment of over $100 million (Rwf56.6 billion) in the Ugandan market.

"We have to think about the whole EAC as one entity. The people strongly relate to each other in terms of culture,” Hao said.

The Shandong province (China)-based company said it will also start delivering broadband internet by wireless means in Rwanda starting next year.

Hao said in an interview that effective July 30, 2009 Rwandan clients will receive a discount of 20 percent on every product purchased including the digital TV sets and the decoder.

The one moth promotion will see clients enjoy a full month without paying subscription fees as well as paying for decoders and TV sets in installments.

However, existing clients have been complaining about poor signal they experience.

"That is sometimes due to the poor signal from channels we broadcast,” Hao explained.

The company covers the analog, digital network and digital TV technology, cooperating closely with world leading technology
providers, equipment manufactures and software developers.

Since the launch of their operations in Rwanda, Hao said Star Media has hit a subscription base of 10,000 clients with a target of 20,000 clients before the year ends.

Company officials say that provision of digital network and digital TV sets is inline with Rwanda’s vision of digitalizing the broadcast media by 2012. It is also partly aimed at fulfilling the agreement of digitalizing the media as agreed between the company and government of Rwanda.

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