Rwanda’s largest mobile operator, MTN Rwanda, yesterday launched a new internet service called ‘MTN Hot Spot’.

The product, which will allow MTN subscribers in Kigali to surf the internet from their laptop at any time of the day or night, is part of the company’s strategy to penetrate the data market in the country.

The data market in Rwanda is dominated by Rwandatel, which is the country’s largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) with an estimated market share of 49 percent.

MTN Rwanda said in a statement that the service will be operated in all areas where the telecom company has connection.

"However, in areas where signal strength is low, customers can purchase a booster at only Rwf25,000 which they can connect to their laptop/PC for optimum signal strength,” the statement reads. 

It further states that the post-paid subscribers will be required to visit MTN service centres to have the services activated.

How it works

"To activate a client’s internet, a user will send an SMS to 346 with a preferred password using a mobile phone; the password must be of 8-12 characters long, then a confirmation of the password will be sent directly to you,” reads the statement.

The second step will be to activate the Wi-Fi network on your laptop and select ‘MTN Hot Spot’ from the list of Wi-Fi network provided.

The statement says that if a user has GPRS/3G bundles, the internet session will be charged from the bundles or Rwf30 per MB will be deducted from the user’s airtime balance.

The first SMS requesting for the password will be free of charge.

Mid last month, the telecom giant announced it had hit 2 million active subscribers on its network with an ambition of closing 2010 with 3 million subscribers. 

In an interview with Business Times in February, the company’s CEO, Khaled Mikkawi, explained that this year they will focus on attracting subscribers by introducing new services so as to make a full utilisation of the company’s network capacity.

"When you have such quality size of network that can serve 3 million subscribers, then we need to look for the 3 million subscribers to utilize the capacity,” he said.

Ends