The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The latest data on mobile telecommunications services in Uganda shows a mixed picture regarding quality, both some providers improving and others declining. The country has four mobile network operators: Uganda Telecommunications Corporation Ltd (UTeL), MTN, Airtel, and Tangerine Communications Ltd (Lycamobile).
The companies are given performance targets including a geographical coverage of the country and minimum accepted service quality regarding making and receiving calls, and mobile data operations.
Generally, while MTN and Airtel have shown improvement toward meeting or exceeding the targets, Lycamobile and state-owned UTeL posted a decline in services according to the data collected between August and September 2024.
The assessment done by the Uganda Communications Commission in 30 towns across the country shows that UTeL Dropped Call Rate (which shows the number of calls initiated but not completed) rose from 2.0 percent in 2022 to 2.5 in 2023 before hitting 3.3 percent last year. The regulations set 2 percent as the highest acceptable rate of dropped calls. The company over the three years maintained a 98 percent Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), which is well within the acceptable levels of 95 percent or more. Underperformance in Luwero (92.7 percent) and Isingiro (94.8%) were offset by good rates elsewhere.
UTeL users find it most frustrating in Kisoro where 11.5 percent of the calls will be blocked and 22.7 percent dropped, followed by Isingiro with 5.2 percent blocked calls and 9.1 dropped. Other towns with high rates of UTeL blocked and dropped calls above the acceptable limits include Luwero, Ntungamo, Mityana, Yumbe, Kabale, Mayuge and Rukungiri.
CSSR reflects how reliably someone can make a call when they dial a number, successfully, without issues such as failed attempts or “call failed” messages. A high CSSR (95 to 100 percent) means users experience seamless access to the network whenever they need to make a call.
On the other hand, Lycamobile recorded a declining CSSR Compliance rate which was also well below the set targets at 65 percent in 2022, 88 in 2023, and 69 percent in 2024. However, its dropped call rate remained low between 0.1 and 0.5 percent. MTN’s CSSR Compliance rate was 99, 98, and 99 percent over the three years, while dropped calls declined from 0.8 percent to 0.1.
Similarly, Airtel’s Call Set Success Rate improved from 97 to 99 percent while Dropped Call Rate also improved from 0.8 in 2022 to 0.2 percent in August-September 2024. Across all the towns assessed, only MTN met all the performance targets. Specifically in Mubende, it scored 100 percent with no dropped calls, no blocked calls, and no delays between dialing and the time the call goes through.
Fort Portal, Kisoro, Kotido, and Masaka did block calls registered 1 percent or higher, but still below the 2 percent UCC limit. Airtel failed to meet the target on blocked calls in three towns: Gulu, Masindi, and Mbarara, where they recorded 3.0, 2.6, and 2.3 perverts respectively.
The study involved visiting and taking network measurements in key locations like commercial areas, health centers, district headquarters, schools, and residential areas to ascertain how consumers experience the services in real-life situations. UCC says the tests were conducted during peak hours when most people are using their phones.
Factors that influence blocked calls include network congestion, limited signal strength, or infrastructure gaps in certain areas, such as insufficient tower coverage or interference. Dropped Call Rates on the other hand result from weak signal strength, signal interference from other radio transmitters, and handover failures between network cells during mobility.
Data Performance also posted a mixed picture regarding Data Throughput/Speed – the amount of data that gets transferred from one point on the network to another in a given amount of time.
The assessment shows that Lycamobile had average website download speeds of 5.3 megabits per second, a slight decline from 2023, while Airtel had 15.5 and MTN 16.3 Mbps.
On Latency, (the measure of the time it takes for data to travel from the user’s device to the server and back in milliseconds), Lycamobile registered 84 ms while Airtel and MTN had 69 milliseconds.
Another performance measure is the Data Packet Loss (Lost Data).
It reflects the percentage of data packets that fail to reach their destination. The lower the loss value the better the user experience. The study showed that Lycamobile and Airtel data losses were 16.3 with the former improving from 22.7 in 2023, while the latter deteriorated from 5.6 percent.
MTN recoded average packet losses of 7.8 percent.
****
URN
