HiPipo Money

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Med Kimbugwe.

By exactly 2:30PM yesterday (3rd December 2014), members of the media were already at the new MTN Business Center located at Nyonyi Gardens, Kololo eager to engage the MTN CEO and his leadership team on several issues that have received a lot of publicity in the past month.

Honestly, I for one was burning with questions and concerns; and couldn’t wait for CEO Brian Gouldie to finish delivering his statement. You know, it is always better to table your questions and concerns to the relevant parties instead of hating and spreading unsubstantiated information from wherever you are.

In a straight forward manner, the CEO expressed concern about the multiple bundle activations and reiterated the determination by MTN Uganda’s leadership to resolve this issue once and for all.

“We identified a logic problem between 30th June to 16th Oct and between 17th October to 17th November. A total of 360,893 data instability incidents were identified, verified and refunded. The customers that were affected by the data instability represent about 10% of MTN’s total data subscribers currently standing above 3.4 million.” CEO Brian noted.

This was the second time in the past 3 weeks that MTN was coming out to give its position on the whole data instability issue. And for this, they need to be credited as it is almost unheard of in these economies for brands to go public on such issues.

MTN has proactively rebated all affected customers to a tune of Ushs. 778,102,469 worth of airtime and Ushs. 213,729,050 worth of goodwill data bundles disbursements. The company says that it will continue to identify, verify and refund all similar issues on a case by case basis.

Brian noted that compensation was for all affected customers, since it is very easy to identify which customer lost airtime and how much.

By the end of the day, the whole picture was clear in a number of ways.

First and foremost, the technical glitches did not in any way ‘snatch’ the data customers’ airtime. They only caused inconvenience, since customers would get multiple bundle activations hence paying more money.

Secondly, compensation has been made and continues to be made as long as more cases are identified and verified.

Finally, the leadership of MTN Uganda is genuinely dedicated to solving this data issue and very soon, customers will continue to enjoy stable and world class Internet without interference, as well as the first class services that MTN Uganda has always provided.

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Happy Holidays at the Sheraton

Why you should spend this festive season with the Sheraton Kampala Hotel?

The holidays are here, the kids are home and the relatives are visiting. With Christmas days away, you need a fun plan with the best value for money. Sheraton is your best bet with fun for everyone; not forgetting the food. Word on the street is that there are 5 new international chefs.

For those of us who grew up going to the Sheraton for Christmas brunch, this is music to our ears. We can all remember the sumptuous food and playing in the large lush gardens or splashing around in the pool. To have this revived is simply divine.

This year, Sheraton is offering you some little titbits to make your Christmas as festive as possible.

Christmas Turkey

The origins of having turkey for Christmas dinner have been narrowed down to the fact that turkeys are large enough to feed an army. Over time, people have found ways to turn this bird into something sinfully delicious and Sheraton has chosen the best recipes for you. Get this yuletide staple perfectly cooked with delicious stuffing, sauce and gravy plus all the trimmings for you to enjoy with friends and family.

Christmas Cake

What is Christmas without cake? Temptations probably the best cake shop in Kampala is offering you a wide selection of delectable cakes for your pleasure.

Christmas Eve

Be washed in the joy of Christmas with carols from the Harmonic Band. The band will walk around the hotel singing to each and every person they meet. 

Christmas Day

Get ready for a delicious buffet of continental, Indian and Ugandan Cuisine plus traditional Sheraton Christmas carvery of succulent slow roasted turkey, honey-glazed ham and beef fillet. Salivating yet? Better make reservations now.

Boxing Day

As you revel in the presents you’ve received, Sheraton will be serving a Mediterranean Fiesta of French, Turkish, Spanish, Greek and Italian cuisine. All in one night!

New Year

Everyone knows that Sheraton is place to be on New Year’s. The food, the party, the fireworks, nothing beats that sight. This time, put a spin to the action and usher in the New Year at the Paradise Gardens or pool deck with some bubbly. It is also the perfect place to catch the fireworks.

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Find it in all MTN stores!

The 7-inch tablet category has lately been seeing an influx of options with voice-calling capabilities. Buyers seem to be toying with the idea of screens bigger than phablets, even if such devices make them look ridiculous while making calls. We’ve seen quite a few people in the wild using Samsung Galaxy Tab 2s and 3s stuck to their faces. We are trying to recollect if we actually got to see their faces, though. Thankfully, others use wired/Bluetooth headsets for making calls.

Asus is making the most of this trend by launching Fonepad variants left, right and centre. In a little more than a year, the Taiwanese technology major has launched three Fonepad tablets – all of them featuring SIM card support and voice calling. The latest one is the Fonepad 7 Dual SIM. Now, buyers can make phone calls on two networks instead of one.

The updated Fonepad 7 Dual SIM has the same specs as its single-SIM sibling.

Verdict

Amazingly, with a price of 450,000 UGX, the Asus Fonepad 7 Dual SIM is in fact the cheapest classy device ever in this market. The increased girth notwithstanding, it has all the features that you would expect from a tablet priced at more than 1,800,000 UGX- a good screen, great media playback, respectable battery life, lag-free performance and a decent camera too. We can’t find much fault with the device and Asus seems to have hit the bullseye with this one.

Asus surely gives you value for money!

Read our review for details.

Look and Feel

The Fonepad 7 Dual SIM has quite a few differences in the design department when compared to the Fonepad 7. It is slightly heavier, at 340g, and slightly wider and thicker too. The dual front-firing speakers have been replaced by a single speaker grille on the lower back of the device. The back features the same white plastic panel which is really glossy, reflective and attracts smudges easily. The camera is, however, not protruding this time.

The bare front of the Asus Fonepad 7 makes way for an Asus logo below the screen on this device. The right edge features the volume rocker and power button – both made of plastic. On the top, we have the Micro-USB port and 3.5mm headset jack. The plastic is slippery and we were forced to use two hands for operating it most of the time.

Camera

Asus has a proprietary camera app that allows users to change manual settings such as ISO, exposure value and white balance. It also has a severely limited set of four effects that one can apply.

The 5-megapixel camera on the Asus Fonepad 7 Dual SIM is a mixed bag. Focusing is slightly erratic but once focused, the camera manages to capture images really quickly. The details captured by the camera are great but the colour seems to be slightly off. The camera has a problem with the auto white balance feature. We suggest changing the white balance manually to suit conditions. If used with patience, the Fonepad 7 Dual SIM can indeed capture some good images, especially close-ups.

The quality of captured video is not that great despite the 1080p resolution. The front camera takes just about serviceable photographs.

Features and specifications

The Fonepad 7 Dual SIM has a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2520 dual-core processor under the hood. Apart from this it has 8GB of internal storage of which approximately 5GB is available for the users to install apps and copy content. We have to make a mention of the fact that unlike other companies, Asus specifies this explicitly on the back of the box. Furthermore, users can expand the storage up to 64GB by inserting a microSD card, and Asus also provides 16GB of cloud storage for a year on its own cloud platform.

The 5-megapixel rear camera can shoot videos at 1080p, and for users who like taking selfies the Fonepad Dual SIM has a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera which can capture videos at 720p resolution. Both the SIMs can operate on the 850/900/1800/1900 bands. The device also has Bluetooth 4.0, a gyroscope and proximity sensor.

The 7-inch screen has a resolution of 1280×800 which is the same as both the Fonepad 7 and the original Fonepad. The screen is highly reflective and susceptible to smudges just like the back. Viewing angles are okay but legibility is not great under sunlight. On the whole, we actually liked the crispness of the screen despite its low density of 216 ppi.

Software

One look at the software and we were immediately transported back to November 2013 when we reviewed the Fonepad 7. Despite running Android 4.3 as opposed to Android 4.2.2 on the Fonepad 7, the skin is exactly the same. The only difference is that some third-party apps have been been dropped, which is good. We love it when manufacturers reduce bloatware.

Asus adds a fourth button to the standard three-button Android setup, which opens ‘floating apps’. Floating apps or widgets are nothing but apps that can be opened in a smaller window size to to allow multitasking across all the real estate that a 7-inch screen offers. Audiowizard is a barebones app that lets users choose from a set of modes which we presume are equaliser presets. Asus calls its screen enhancement tech Splendid, and there’s an app of the same name that lets users tweak colour settings to their liking.

The rest of the apps bundled with the Fonepad 7 Dual SIM are Amazon Kindle, Zinio and a few other Asus branded apps.

Performance

The Asus Fonepad 7 Dual SIM is one of the few Android tablets in the market to feature a hyper-threaded Intel processor under the hood. In day-to-day usage, the tablet performed really well and felt extremely snappy to use with nary a lag.

The Fonepad 7 played video files encoded at any resolution without any hiccups. Complementing this great video performance is the audio performance. We tested the audio playback on our reference earphones considering Asus doesn’t bundle any in the box, and we found the sound quality to be really good. The only blot on the otherwise good scoresheet of the Asus Fonepad 7 Dual SIM is the average sounding speaker. This is a setback considering the front-firing speakers were really good on the older model .

In our battery tests, the tablet lasted us a good 9 hours, 23 minutes before we had to charge it. This bodes well for the battery life of the device and we expect it to last at least two full days with heavy usage. The call quality on the device is great too (yes, we used a wired headset for phone calls) with absolutely no problem in latching on to networks.

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MTN Uganda has rebated all lost credit to all its data users due to multiple bundle loading  following the recent incidents/ complaints in which customers accounts had multiple deductions or lost airtime as a result.  In reality MTN did not take away money but due to system logic failure, customers were allowed to log more than one request and once the system  normalized, they were credited multiple bundles which in some cases depleted their airtime wallets, as a business  we find it unfair to retain the earnings in error hence the rebate.

In a Press Conference held on Tuesday 18^th November 2014, MTN CEO Brian Gouldie informed members of the media that following several upgrades on the system dating back to June of this year, there have been a number incidents that led to intermittent system performance of our data services. This led to MTN customers experiencing either multiple bundle activations, failed but charged activations or delayed bundle activations.

In a follow-up press conference on Wednesday December 3^rd 2014 held at the company’s newly refurbished Business Centre at Nyonyi Gardens, Mr. Gouldie reported that MTN has proactively rebated all affected customers to a tune of Ushs. 778,102,469 of lost airtime. He added that MTN will continue to identify, verify and refund all other similar issues on a case by case basis. In addition to the rebates, MTN has gone further and given data bundles to customers who might have been affected by the intermittent occurrences on MTN’s data services. 281,084 MTN data customers have also received various bundle sizes of MTN’s Mobile Internet bundle types (daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly), to the tune of Ushs. 213,729,050. Combined we have rebated approximately one billion shillings (shs. I Billion) worth of data bundles and airtime.

According to Gouldie, between 30th June and 16^th October 2014, 203, 798 incidents were reported and another 156,803 were identified for the period Oct 17^th to Nov. 17^th bringing the total number of complaints to 360,893 all of which have been verified and rebated. The affected customers represent approximately 10% of MTN’s total data subscriber base now standing in excess of 3.4 million.

Mr. Gouldie further commented that, “MTN has put in place measures to prioritize all data related complaints by attending to related incidents with the highest priority. We acknowledge that in world that is now very dependent on the Internet for new and day to day living, it’s extremely important that service interruptions are avoided as much as possible”. MTN has in addition committed more resources to fast track the resolution of data complaints. A new twitter handle, www.twitter.com/MTNUgcare has been commissioned to solely focus on resolving customer related queries. All other customer contact points including the 126 toll free data helpline, the Facebook page www.facebook.com/MTNUg and our 16 walk in service centres spread across Uganda, 9 of which are in Kampala alone will continue to prioritize all data complaints and provide timely resolutions. “At MTN, we value the trust the customers have put in our products and services and will stop at nothing to ensure that trust is never betrayed”, Gouldie said.

Gouldie told journalists that despite the temporary challenges that the brand has experienced with its mobile data solution, MTN remains committed to pioneering tailored solutions that address customer’s needs, in both a responsible but sustainable manner.

“At the heart of our strategy is value for money for our customers and at the same time being able to sustain the operations of the company for the long- term. We strongly believe that Internet access is a Human Right. Since 2010, we have enabled this right for all our customers, regardless of who and where they are in Uganda, by consistently giving them15MB of free Internet every month.” We believe that this gesture from MTN has recruited many new data users in the country and in the process contributed greatly to the digitization of Uganda’s social and business activities.

Content Management Solution (CMS) to address spamming and unexplained charges for subscriptions services

Meanwhile, MTN Uganda has also implemented a content management solution. The solution will manage the distribution and billing of content from 3^rd party content providers to MTN customers. CMS provides features that will enable MTN customers to accept or stop promotional SMS messages and subscription alerts of various information like current news and sports news, relationship/love tips and service updates among others.

“It’s a top business priority for MTN to focus on driving a positive customer experience across all our services & product portfolios,” said Mr. Gouldie. He added “We are therefore very mindful of the concerns our customers have continued to raise about the spam messages they receive from content providers and hence have taken the initiative to give them the power to take control and choose the messages they receive”. In addition, MTN is implementing a 30 day expiry and customers will be given an option to select continue if they so wish to continue receiving the subscription notifications. And it’s our recommendations that this becomes an industry standard.

This solution will in effect put the power in the hands of customers to stop unwanted SMS messages, and to subscribe or unsubscribe to messages of their choice. It will allow customers to opt out of receiving specific messages as identified by a Sender ID – which is the name/number from which these messages are received by a subscriber. Customers will still have the option to keep receiving or subscribing messages about products and services they deem important to them. To use the solution, customers dial *175# and follow prompts. We are also in the process of migrating this functionality to *196#

This solution that has been developed in collaboration with Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), is a pro-active first step towards protecting our customers from spamming and charges they knowingly or unknowingly incur as a result of subscribing to information services/alerts they receive on their mobile handsets.

“At MTN, we value the trust that customers have put in our brand and we will do all that is necessary to ensure that they have a positive experience when using our services, Gouldie concluded.

Fact sheet on Content Management

When you dial *175#, you will stop receiving unwanted SMS messages, promotional messages, subscription alerts and only allows you to  receive the messages you want.

MTN is putting the power back in your hands.

Q. What type of SMS messages can I stop?

A. You can stop Promotional Messages and Subscription Alerts.

Q. Where and how can I access this service?

A. The service can be accessed anywhere, anytime on your mobile phone by dialing *196#

Q. What are Promotional Messages?

A. These are messages used to promote various products and services, e.g. wedding meetings, bonus offers or SMS from utility providers and other companies advertising their products.

Q. What are Subscription Alerts?

A. These are any SMS messages from Content Providers that require the receiver to subscribe and be charged for the messages they receive. Examples of such messages include News and Sports or Love tips.

When you subscribe to these messages your airtime is deducted each time you receive a message/alert. Charges for subscriptions are indicated when you are subscribing.

Q. Who are Content Providers?

A. These are companies that send information to mobile subscribers through channels like SMS or voice messages. This information might be free or charged. The charged messages are usually referred to as Subscription Alerts.

Q. What happens if I choose to “Stop All” messages?

A. You will not be able to receive any information including transaction alerts from banks, utility payments such as water (NWSC), electricity (UMEME), Pay TV (DStv) or wedding meeting messages.

However, you have the option to allow particular messages as indicated by a Sender ID. For example, if you want to continue receiving messages from UMEME, NWSC or your bank, you dial *196# and select Subscription Alerts, select Alerts by Sender ID, select Allow and enter the Sender ID of the type of message you want to continue receiving.

Q. What is a Sender ID?

A. This is the name of the information/message that you receive. These names could be those of banks, such as DFCU or from utility service providers like UMEME, NWSC and DStv. A Sender ID may also include a number and the topic of the message, e.g. 8008 News, 8198 Sports, 8002 Love among others.

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The festive mood was set with neon lights, gifts, free Wi-Fi, music and non-stop entertainment when MTN Uganda staged their final Internet expo of 2014 in the heart of Lira town.

Early this year, MTN embarked on a mission to take the fastest and most reliable Internet, closer to its customers in all regions that have included Central, Eastern, western and now North, providing an opportunity for customers to experience firsthand MTN’s fast Internet speeds, the latest devices and other latest technological innovations.

As pioneer in delivering a bold, new digital world, MTN Uganda has in excess of 3 million internet users and the MTN Internet expos are tailored to enable this fraction of subscribers to experience the seamless MTN Internet and other technological innovations on offer.

The Lira MTN Internet expo kicked off on 27^th going on till 29^th November 2014 attracting hundreds of enthusiastic visitors from varied backgrounds.

 MTN Uganda’s Acting Chief Marketing Officer Hazel Twesigye said MTN has used the Expo to educate and create awareness of the vast opportunities available through the use of ICT as well as expose customers to the various data options available from MTN Products LTE routers, modems, internet enabled phones and tablets.

“At MTN we are constantly keeping abreast with technology trends so as to serve our customers. The speed at which the world is moving technologically leaves us with no option but to move with it. For instance Smartphones and tablets now pose a big challenge to the traditional PC and MTN is fully immersed in delivering this new digital world to its customers. We want people to Touch, Feel and Experience World-class Internet. ” she added.

Lira Town Clerk, Mr. Daniel Kaweesi commended MTN for the unmatched initiative and for bringing it to the northern region. He underscored the valuable role internet continues to play for development, urging the business community in the region to take advantage of what MTN has to offer for their personal growth.

The Expo was crowned each day with entertainment from local artistes who included Coco Finger and Gravity Omutujju. The exhibitions also featured stalls from MTN’s partners who included Samsung, Nokia, Go Phones and Alcatel.

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This festive season DStv subscribers are getting the offer of a lifetime. DStv, the number one Pay TV player in the market has made a massive price reduction offer for customers to purchase their hardware this festive season. Effective Friday, 21^st November 2014, the high definition Decoder Explora will cost just UGX 515,000 from UGX 965,000 (decoder only) and a full installed kit for standard definition decoder for DStv can be purchased at just UGX 279,000 from 327,000UGX.

Bryan Muwonge, Marketing Manager DStv Uganda said, “We are happy to celebrate this festive season with our customers by bringing our highly celebrated latest high definition decoder the Explora offering it at just 515,000UGX from 965,000UGX, the biggest discount in the history our existence.” Revealed Bryan. “We know how the festive season can be fun packed with lots of interesting programming to watch, The Explora will ensure our customers do not miss out on any of these interesting programming to ensure that they have the liberty to catch up on all programming that the season has to offer.” Added Bryan Muwonge.

Jude Kalema, Sales Manager DStv Uganda added “There is no better time than now to join the prestigious DStv family. We urge all potential customers to come on board and relish our unrivalled content and programming for the entire family and keep them abreast with news and events around the world. Our Explora HD functionality asserts superior applications such as Catch Up and Box office (soon to be launched) as well as permitting customers to rewind, forward, and pause live television. The superior picture and sound quality is unmatched completely evolving the television experience for our customers. I therefore urge all potential customers to leverage on this price special this festive season” said Jude Kalema.

The price special will be applicable until 30^th January 2015.