Unitel (Angola)

Unitel S.A. is a private Angolan mobile phone company which was established on 8 March 2001[1] as a joint-stock company. The company is owned by Oi and Helios (through Africatel), Angolan state-owned oil company Sonangol and local firms like Geni holding (through Mercury), and Vidatel owned by Isabel dos Santos, each holding 25% of Unitel. Tony Dolton is the Executive Director of Unitel since September 2013.

The seat of the company is Luanda. It has about 2.000 employees and a network coverage nearly in all the provincial municipalities since 2002. It is expected to reach all of them by 2012.[2]

Unitel sells its services via a network of shops; recharging cards for pre-paid contracts are also sold by individual street sellers all over Angola. Prepaid cards can also be recharged via the Multicaixa network of ATM's. Unitel claims to have 9 million customers[3] out of a population of estimated 18 to 20 million people.

Unitel operates a network based on GSM and UMTS standards, and provides voice communications, text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages, and mobile internet access. Contracts are available as post-paid and pre-paid. Since December 2011, Unitel covers all Angolan municipalities, by installing a transmitter in Rivungo, Kuando Kubango province; a station which is operated by solar power.[4]

The tariff is calculated in UTT (Unidade Tarifária de Telecomunicações - Telecommunication Tariff Units), a common tariff unit used by all telecommunication companies in Angola. The price of one UTT is 7,2 Kwanzas. Recharging cards are available with 125 UTT, 375 UTT, 625 UTT and 1250 UTT for 900 Kwanzas respectively 2700 Kwanzas etc. Post-paid contracts can also be paid by bank transfer or direct debit from a bank account. The Unitel phone numbers begin with 92, 93 and 94.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Unitel, Angolas biggest cellphone operator, ipad.africa.com, retrieved 9 August 2012
  2. ↑ Angola's Unitel To Carry Out US$1.7billion In Network Upgrade telecomafrica.blogspot.com, 20 July 2009
  3. ↑ "Unitel". Unitel S.A. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
  4. ↑ "Unitel assegura cobertura em todos os municípios" [Unitel establishes coverage in all municipalities] (Press release) (in Portuguese). Unitel S.A. 20 December 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2012.

External links


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