Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

My daughter’s 5^th Birthday was on December 4^th, 2009 and my SO’s was on December 5^th . Also, due to possibly 72 reasons, my SO’s sister decided to get married on December 5, and So I had to travel to Mbale, being the good father and mpenzi I am.

On my last trip to Uganda, My 3 boys flossed about how they could now to talk to their 16 campus girlfriends all day and all night for just Ugx 1000 (KSHS 40), thanks to the new Warid talk plan dubbed, ‘pakalast’ or ‘pakarasiti’ in luganda. It is said that Warid has all the other players in the Ugandan Market Worried, no pun intended. So I decided to test her and see if she is as versatile, portable, satisfying and hot as the guys claim.

Being a heavy mobile Internet user, I needed to access my Gmail, Sembuse, FaceBook, Zunguka and LinkeIn accounts, lest I become as old as VB6.

December 5^th 9am. I buy a Warid phone line. I get about 13 SMSes in a space of 2 minutes. Some welcoming me to warid, some promising to make me Ugx 25M winner and some promising me a ‘Kikompola’!! Whatever that means. For a moment, ‘Kikompola’ sounded like a homosexual invitation.

So I read the pamphlet and it stated ‘Call 100 for Internet Settings’. I call 100 and the IVR nearly bored me to death. ‘To change language, press 1. To Do x press 2.. blah… blah… to topup press 132… to topup another number press 133.. to speak to a customer care rep, press 0.’!! Damn!! Why didn’t that ZERO option come first. So I press 0 and speak to Rena. She asks the normal stuff about the phone make and all then promises to send the settings in 2 seconds.

3 Minutes later, the phone beeps and alas!! Warid Web Settings! I click on Open, but the settings had a PASSWORD!! ‘Please enter the PIN for the Internet settings’. My Hacker mind started buzzing. ‘Try 1234’, ‘Try 0000’, Try ‘6666’ since Warid is a Muslim company. I decided to act a fool and called 100 again. This time, before the IVR voice could reach 2, I pressed 0 and presto, I am number 125 on the queue. After 2 minutes of waiting a Patrick comes on line and tells me to enter the code 1234. groan!!!

Warid charges Ugx 2.00 per KB of data. Sounds nice and fair, BUT when you consider it is an EDGE connection and convert the per MB rate to KSHS, you realize the deal is not as good as it sounds. Extrapolate that to Per MBs and then to Kenya Shillings and it makes Safaricon look like an angel.

Safaricon charges a maximum of KSHS 8 per MB of data. That is Ugx 196 per MB. For 1 MB of data on Warid, you pay Ugx 2, 048. Warid is 10.4 times MORE EXPENSIVE than our local leech, Safaricon. With Ugx 500 bob on my phone, I cant even poke 100 people on Facebook, leave alone send 2 Kgs of e-Miraa on Sembuse.

The uptake on Internet in Uganda is 4.5%. You wonder why? Even a retarded kid with the IQ of a dung beetle can see it is because EVEN the BEST rates for Internet, make it look and feel as a thing for the rich! Simple AS!

Sadly, even MTN and UTL are on the same 2/= per MB madness.

And here I am complaining about Kenya Data Rates. This was a good lesson on Humility. It still does not mean I am suddenly going to jump to bed with Safcons offer or Zains 250 bob per day unlimited internet rate. Still Bloody Expensive.

Even as we approach 2010, Mobile Service Providers are fighting the voice and SMS battle. This, ofcourse wins over some promiscuous customers who hold more than one line at a time, but in the long run, the primary sim card war is WON by the holistic provider. In Uganda, there is NONE!

Data and Content infrastructure is set and ready to go [Warids EDGE feels like 3G, SuperFast! Possibly because it is too expensive for the average user to log in and clog the small pipe] but lethargic and 2002ish thinking make people do this new thing the OLD tired way.

I believe the clear winner for the Primary SIM war, especially with the advent of Mobile Social Networks like Zunguka.com, Sembuse, CM, CN and CC plus mobile web social networks like FaceBook etc will be someone who will charge the user KSHS 10-40 per day for data. Come on MSP, you have NOTHING to lose!!

Back to code!

-Salim, Idd.

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