NAIROBi, Kenya
Orange has launched a wireless fixed voice service targeted at households and small office home office (SoHo) customers. Home talk, the pre-paid service, which will be provided via a plug and play desk top phone at a one-off device cost of KSh4,500 will also allow the user to enjoy high voice quality using a phone number similar to traditional landline numbers.
The service will be initially available for new fixed lines in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret. Company CEO, Mickael Ghossein, announced that Orange customers currently on its Telkom Fixed line PSTN service may move with their current landline numbers to this new service, in the final phase of the Home talk roll-out.
The company is undertaking a countrywide fixed network transformation project that will result in an overall upgrade to the network. More than 40 fixed network sites have been upgraded already and will be eligible for the migration, while the remaining sites continue to be upgraded progressively.
“As part of our greater network transformation programme, our customers currently on our fixed wire line service will be able to migrate with their numbers to the wireless version of our fixed voice service,” says Ghossein, adding that the wireless solution will also allow Orange customers enjoy uninterrupted service since the service will not be at the risk of cable cuts.
Customers on Home talk will purchase monthly bundles, with 30 day validity periods, at only KSh 750 per month. This offering will enable them enjoy Orange mobile rates: KSh 2 for on-net calls, KSh 3 off-net calls as opposed to the KSh 6 for on-net calls and KSh 12 for off-net calls on the Telkom fixed landlines. Moreover, the Home talk customer will get ten hours of free talk time to three preferred Orange mobile numbers and five hours of free talk time to all numbers on Telkom Fixed and Orange Wireless.
Additional services traditionally available on mobile lines such as voice mail, missed call alert, airtime transfer etc will also be available on Home talk. “We are constantly tailoring our products and solutions with the customer in mind and aim to deliver more value, flexibility and satisfaction to our existing customers as well as present a sound and exciting proposition that will attract new customers,” adds Ghossein.
Despite the growth of mobile telecommunications cannibalising the fixed line market, Ghossein says that the fixed line solution has a future in Kenya. “Looking at developed economies as a gauge of the direction that telecommunications in developing countries will go, we see that fixed line telecommunication is the backbone of telecommunications, both for domestic and business purposes. Mobile telecommunications remains a very strong complimentary solution,” says Ghossein.
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