Festive season sparks off stiff telecom tariff competition

Telecom companies are busy juggling and revising their tariff regime with equally very persuasive advertising campaigns, targeting mainly the festive season. All the three telecom operators in Rwanda, MTN Rwanda, Rwandatel and the newly launched Tigo Rwanda, are currently engaged in persuasive advertising of their tariff structures saying they have slashed prices. MTN Rwanda the biggest in terms of market size has introduced a Christmas promotion dubbed ‘Know Your Tariffs and choose what’s best for you’. With this package MTN subscribers can call for as low as Rwf0.18 per sec. The other tariffs which are prescribed within the ‘MTN Zone’ facility start with a 25 percent price reduction depending on where a subscriber is calling from, for as much as Rwf1.37 per sec and a 90 percent which goes up to Rwf0.18. MTN officials said that users would have to subscribe and activate the facility before utilising it. MTN Zone technology is the latest technology that is provided by Ericsson Company. it is designed to allow callers make big savings in areas where there is low network utilisation. Officials of Tigo Rwanda, which is a brand of Millicom International Cellular (MIC), said during the commercial launch of the brand, said that the company would not offer any promotional packages. While the company said it was committed to offering the “best pre-paid plan” in the market, Tigo’s festive season advertising campaign is contrary to what was said earlier. Earlier a call from Tigo to Tigo costed Rwf1 per second starting at 8 pm. According to the new campaign subscribers can enjoy this all day and night. The tariffs under the new promotional campaign run until December 31st. Tigo’s campaign catch phrase is, “With Tigo in December everyday is a weekend.” Tigo has also introduced the lowest denomination card where customers can top up from as little as Rwf300.” Rwandatel, the second national operator, has also introduced the “Enjoy FREE talk from 6 to 6”, promotion and another package dubbed ‘VUGA tariff.’ Under this promotion, a caller can make unlimited calls every day from 6 am to 6 pm for only Rwf500. Under the VUGA tariff, Rwandatel subscribers can call for as low as Rwf1.20 per second. Ends

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Festive season sparks off stiff telecom tariff competition