Vodafone may have voice service soon

Sat, 03 Dec 2016 10:59:49 +0000

 VODAFONE Zambia will start providing voice services as soon as the new licensing framework is available on the market, says company chief executive officer Lars Stork. Mr Stork said in an interview that although Vodafone Zambia was currently only offering internet services, it would also start providing voice services as soon as the market opened up.

“The Government is positively developing a new licencing framework that is being supported by ZICTA. “As soon as that framework becomes available in the market, we want to continue with our date services also in the voice space. But when the framework is there, we will certainly do that.

We want to be in that space when the marker opens up,” he said. He however explained that voice services were not as important as it was in the past as most people were using social media such as WhatsApp which had voice calls and whose quality was better than the traditional calls. He said his company would continue providing high quality internet services while it awaited the voice market to open up. Mr Stork also said the US$40 million worth company which started operations in June this year had so far attracted 70,000 subscribers on its network.

He explained that this success had been backed by 60 university graduates from the eight universities Vodafone Zambia had developed programmes with. He said Vodafone Zambia would continue to stimulate the interest that young people have in Zambia by engaging them in different programmes. “Six of them have already developed products which have been rolled out outside the country and if you put your mind to it, you could create something magical with support from Government and it is all about promoting empowerment,” he said. Mr Stork urged other companies to stimulate opportunities for the young people as a way of creating jobs.