TELECOMS
Integrated telecommunications services provider, Orange, has launched Home talk, a wireless fixed voice service targeted at households and Small Office Home Office (SoHo) customers.
The pre-paid service, will also allow the user to enjoy high voice quality via a fixed numbering plan (e.g. 020XXXXXXX). The service will be guided by regulatory compliance on the provision of a fixed voice service, linked to a geographical numbering plan that will allow a user to know the origin of a call as well as give assurance that those being called are where they should be. Over and above Home talk, Orange will continue to launch additional fixed voice offers before the end of the year for those customers that prefer a post-paid service.
Company CEO Mickael Ghossein also 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. Moreover, a customer may also purchase a new number or even retrieve a number that they had had previously.
The company is currently 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.
Customers on Home talk will purchase monthly bundles, with 30 day validity periods, enabling them enjoy Orange mobile rates: KSh 2 for on-net calls and KSh 3 off-net calls. 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 within the Home talk bundle. Additional services on Home talk are voice mail, missed call alert, airtime transfer and SMSs. Nonetheless,customers that may not wish to purchase the bundle can still subscribe to Home talk via the Pay As You Go Rates.
“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.
Orange embarked on a countrywide transformation programme, replacing its copper cables with fibre optic infrastructure in order to enhance network reliability. Overall, the transformation programme is aimed at enabling the company build on industry best practices that will benefit the Orange customer with a wide variety of innovative products and solutions.
Home talk will be provided via a plug and play desk top phone at a one-time device cost of KSh 4,500 (exclusive of 16% VAT)
