Siemens Mobile Networks has received an order for Siemens GSM (Sigi) community phone units to be exported to Uganda as part of this country`s massive roll-out of cellular operations. It is the first time that the Sigi, which is developed and manufactured by Siemens Mobile Networks in Pretoria, will be exported to a foreign country, following the success of this community phone here in South Africa. "We have always envisaged the roll-out of the Sigi and the concept of pre-paid to the rest of Africa. Although significant interest has been shown in this product this is the first order for Sigi`s from outside the borders of South Africa,", said Paul McKibbin, head of Siemens Mobile Networks in Pretoria. Uganda is currently undergoing a massive communications revolution with the announcement of the privatisation of Uganda Telecoms and the granting of a second cellular operator licence at the beginning of the year. "Although Uganda has experienced a decade of high growth, and while larger centres like Kampala are surging, the telecommunications infrastructure in large parts of the country is still almost non-existing, with only 46 000 telephone lines servicing a population of 19 million," McKibbin said. "The Sigi phones can play a major role in establishing a reliable communication solution for millions of people," he concluded. The order for the Sigi phones was placed by network operator Celtel as part of its drive to get its penetration into ruraly underserviced areas in Uganda. Uganda has a potential market of an estimated 50 000 cellular users. Celtel currently holds around 7 000 subscribers. The Sigi was designed for use in Vodacom phoneshops in townships and underserviced communities throughout South Africa. It offers a pre-paid metering facility with basic call control functions for the phoneshop operator as well as the network operator. This allows the network operator to remotely enable the phoneshop operator`s Sigi`s for a maximum credit limit and disable it again automatically when the credit is consumed. The phoneshop operator in turn sells the airtime to customers in the same controlled manner. In South Africa the Sigi phone shops have provided direct job opportunities for more than 1 000 entrepreneurs from underserviced communities throughout the country, putting more than 20 million South Africans in touch with the modern world.
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