What a year 2020 has been, Uganda’s telecom giant has been through a roller-coaster of activities from the selling of tower assets, supporting the COVID-19 pandemic, a 5G tease, to mention but a few. Let’s have a timeline of MTN Uganda’s 2020. January 2020
MTN Uganda Sells Tower Assets to ATC
The 4th of January saw MTN Group announce that it had finalized an agreement to dispose of its 49% equity holdings in MTN Uganda and Ghana Tower Company investments to a subsidiary of American Tower Company for $523 million. This transaction was closed in Q1 2020. MTN Uganda sold off all its tower assets to American Tower Company (ATC) . 5G Technology Tease
MTN Uganda 5G demo The telecom giant showcased several demonstrations of how fast its future 5G technology network will be in comparison to its existing 4G network. We can’t wait to try out all they have to show off. February 2020
MTN Uganda dismisses UCC’s network performance report
On January 28th, 2018, the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) released a network performance report that it conducted the period between September to November 2019. The report indicated that Airtel Uganda had the fastest mobile data services while Africell lacked when it came to drop call rate. However, the UCC report said that MTN and UTL came out on top with the least towns registering high drop call rate. It however left the telecom giant in the middle with no direct recognition. In 2020, MTN Uganda refuted some aspects of the UCC report from the regulator sighting several issues and the regulator’s inability to follow some international standards. March 2020
The licensing drama ends
The telecom giant has finally ended the 3-year brawl with the government and secured a 14-year long term license that guarantees its operations in Uganda in the future.
MTN Uganda agreed to at least float 20 percent of its shares on the Uganda Securities Exchange, and pay $100 million in blanket taxes for a 14-year license. This was a good deal for MTN Uganda as it saved the company $18 million. In 2019, MTN had been required to pay at least $118 million (UGX 438 billion) for a 10-year license. If the company wishes to have the permit for up to 15 years, they would have parted with $150 million (UGX 557 billion). But this was slashed down to just $100 million for 14 […]
