Lagos – Smile Telecoms Holdings Ltd. on Tuesday announced that customers would enjoy the benefits of two first-to-market services — SmileVoice and SmileUnlimited — in all its operating markets.
This is contained in a statement issued by Mrs Irene Charnley, Smile Group’s Chief Executive Officer, in Lagos.
According to the statement, the September 2015 announcement of the raising of 365 million dollars of debt and equity funding, gave rise to the significant expansion of Smile’s existing 4G LTE mobile broadband networks.
It said that Smile’s coverage was now comparable to the largest 3G network in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, with coverage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to be announced soon.
“Smile owns and operates 4G LTE mobile broadband networks in the 800MHz band in Nigeria, and in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands in Tanzania and Uganda.
“With the introduction of SmileVoice and SmileUnlimited, we are once again demonstrating our commitment to the advancement of the people of Africa.
“As the pioneers of SuperFast mobile broadband on the continent, we understand the direct correlation of broadband penetration to wealth creation and the acceleration of development.
“And we are expending huge resources to make SuperFast internet access and SuperClear voice available across all our markets.”
According to the statement, SmileVoice is a world-first free mobile app that would enable customers with any Android or Apple iPhone device to make SuperClear voice calls over Smile’s 4G LTE networks.
“Having the SmileVoice app on your mobile is like having a second SIM card in your phone. SmileUnlimited provides customers with unlimited access for 30 days over Smile’s SuperFast 4G LTE broadband networks.”
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The statement said that as an additional innovation and convenience to its customers, Smile is the first mobile provider in Africa to offer Voice over 4G LTE to customers with VoLTE-capable handsets.
It further said that Smile is the first mobile operator to launch a free SmileVoice App to enable customers who do not have access to VoLTE-capable handsets to access its SuperClear voice services.
“We made our first Voice over LTE calls in Nigeria during beta-testing in October 2015 and the feedback from our existing customers since our soft-launch early February has been extremely positive.
“Thousands of our customers now make national and international voice calls using their data bundles.’’
It said that SmileVoice would provide customers with the ability to use their data bundles to make SuperClear voice, video calls and send SMSs to any number locally and internationally.
It said that using SmileVoice, Smile-registered customers could make high quality voice calls to anywhere in the world with their data bundles at the lowest local call rate per second in Nigeria.
All SmileVoice calls, it said, are charged in MBs to an active data bundle and equated to a local per second call rate.
The statement explained that any unlimited offering was subject to a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) which ensures maintenance of connectivity throughout the 30-day period.
“The roll-out of SmileVoice and SmileUnlimited in Nigeria will be followed by similar offerings in Tanzania and Uganda and later in DRC,” the statement said. (NAN)
