The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has announced a new law to control marketing aimed at SMS and mobile money users in East Africa.
The added legislation will be relied upon to “restore sanity” and help “improve the quality of services that mobile telephone companies have added to their platforms,” a UCC statement said.
“The most common problems have been the loss of mobile money, dropped telephone calls, free airtime promotions, SMS promotions where the public is asked to vote through certain codes, unsolicited messaging services where the public loses money by replying by text message to certain numbers, as well as unexplained airtime deductions,” Godfrey Mutabazi, Executive Director at UCC, said.
Orange Telecom was singled out by Mutabazi as the only network provider that has not taken advantage of advertising benefits towards clients.
The report mentions lower Internet costs as one bonus for customers, which has to this point been overshadowed by the entrance of “fraudsters” in the mobile industry.
This legislation aims to make the mobile market “a safe haven for fraud to fleece the unsuspecting public.”
The latest additions of the mobile law will serve as an update on the 1997 Uganda Mobile Communications Act.
