“We bought Visafone to give Nigerians faster Internet” – MTN explains
Nigerians who go online via broadband are no strangers to “slow Internet.”
South African telecoms giant MTN said it acquired Visafone in order to solve this problem.
MTN executive Amina Oyagbola revealed this in a press statement on Thursday.
Oyagbola said:
Voice is still king. However, data is becoming increasingly important in our everyday lives, and our energies are focused on enhancing data and Internet services to the benefit of our customers and the country at large.
The acquisition of Visafone highlights MTN’s commitment to Nigeria.
As we work to maximise our data capabilities towards achieving broadband of international quality, our objective is to ensure that Nigerians experience a boost in the quality of broadband Internet services, translating to the much needed enhanced data speeds and value to enhance personal and business productivity.
It is also reflective of our concerted efforts to deepen the growth and roll-out of broadband services across the country in support of the National Broadband Plan for the benefit of Nigerians.
Nigerian millionaire and Zenith Bank founder Jim Ovia found Visafone in 2007.
The telecoms firm went on to become a leading CDMA/ICT company in Nigeria. It offers a number of services including voice, high-speed data (3G), Internet and other value-added services (VAS).
According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Visafone had around two million subscribers in the country, compared to MTN’s 62.5 million.
There were fears MTN sacked at least 2,000 Visafone employees after the takeover.
Reports say the relieved workers were paid three months salaries as severance package after they were fired on January 5.
But reports also say MTN, Thursday, started recalling some of the sacked workers for fresh negotiations.
The recalled workers are to be retrained so they have the requisite skills for engaging the new 4G or long term evolution (LTE) tech, reports say.
MTN said it would have finalised the Visafone deal earlier were it not for its ongoing battle with the NCC..
