Connecting Africa, our must-read news site about the African telecoms market, last week wrote a piece about how mobile data prices in Nigeria have dropped by 75% over the past five years. This is according to data from Research ICT Africa, a policy and regulation think-tank, which showed that the average price of 1GB of data in Nigeria has dropped from $11.15 in mid-2014 to $2.78 at the end of 2019.
Of course, we hope that this trend of falling data prices continues across Africa as it can only be good for consumers, businesses, NGOs and, indeed, Government.
At Telecom26 we are extremely competitive on price, and constantly re-evaluating our cost structure, however, this isn’t why we continue to win connectivity contracts across the continent.
That said, one ongoing challenge for us is competing with the marketing arms of local MNOs and proving that, whilst local would seem a more practical solution, a local service is not always better - or indeed cheaper in the long run. Most of our customers have at one point worked with local MNOs and found that their long-run spend was higher due to the need for various other features or support that was required to get the QoS they needed…
However, for many of our customers the price of connectivity is not the key consideration. For them, access to quality always-on networks is more important.
Always-On Cellular Coverage wherever you are
Quite early on in expansion into African, we realised that juggling multiple SIMs was an extremely tiresome, and time-consuming, activity especially in areas on the edge of two countries where the networks of different operators overlap.
Of course, these days many people are using data-only apps such as VoIP apps these days for both business and pleasure, but these need a good - and cost-effective - data connection which, as we’ve seen is still quite expensive..
And so, we developed a two-pronged approach to help our customers ensure that they are always connected to the fastest, and most reliable, network wherever they are: global SIM cards combined with a global roaming network.
Our Multi-IMSI global SIM cards enable one SIM to access multiple networks and removes the need to worry about the coverage of a single MNO.
Migration across networks takes place automatically with the SIMs reconfiguring if the primary network has poor or no service and automatically selecting the best performing network in the area.
And, thanks to our water-tight roaming agreements, we can provide our customers with access to 1100 cellular networks from over 620 mobile operators in 220 different countries and territories.
We can also customise our offering and build routing profiles for each customer according to their needs and budget. For example, for organisations that are more price sensitive we can ensure that they automatically connect to the cheapest service in the area, rarely access expensive satellite links - and make the most of wifi for data-heavy up and downloads.
Providing our customers with access to the best available network wherever they are
Most of our healthcare and maritime clients have keyworkers in remote areas who need reliable broadband to do their jobs. Mobile is the only way to receive broadband in such areas and so we automatically connect to the best G network in any area - as well as wifi and satellite where available.
The CAPEX for these projects is high and reliable communications are vital. Thanks to Telecom26, these experts on the ground are now able to concentrate on their jobs rather than worrying about connectivity.
Telecom 26 - ready for 5G but focused on making the most of existing networks
We are focused on providing our customers with the best connectivity available wherever they live and work.
We are constantly innovating and evolving our portfolio based on the experiences of ourselves - and, of course, our customers.
We offer a full range of connectivity options including 5G (where networks exist), LTE, WiFi, NB-IoT, private networks, 2G, 3G and 4G, as well as offshore connectivity capabilities.
So please Get in touch to find out how Telecom26 can help improve connectivity for your team, wherever they are in the world.
