GT promises value added service in 2006

Accra, Nov. 30, GNA - Mr Oystein Bjorge, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Telecom (GT), on Wednesday promised customers of Onetocuh, GT's mobile wing, of an exciting 2006, as the Company would introduce a lot of value added services.

"2006 promises to be an exciting year for ONEtouch customers. Lots of value added services will be introduced," he said.

Mr Bjorge made the promise at a press launch of a new promotion package dubbed "Aseda" meaning "thanksgiving or appreciation" designed to say thank you to the loyal customers of Onetouch. The introduction of the Aseda Package marked the end of the Onetouch Biggie Promotion on November 30, 2005.

The Aseda package offers the onetouch starter pack at 30,000 cedis with 10,000 cedis free preloaded airtime as in the Biggie pack. Additionally, during the Aseda Promotion period, December 1, 2005 to January 1, 2006, onetouch customers would enjoy 50 per cent discount on calls within onetouch during the peak hours of 0700 to 2100 hours and 25 per cent discount on IDD calls to UK, USA, Canada, Holland, Germany and Italy, where most Ghanaians have relatives.

The package also offers free night calls from 23 hours to 0600 hours the following day after the first minute charge and 20 free SMS within onetouch instead of 10 in the Biggie promotion.

Mr Bjorge noted that before the introduction of the Biggie promotion the onetouch customer base was a little below 300,000, but the promotion helped to raise the figure to half a million customers within a short time.

"We plan to double this number by the end of 2006," he said. He noted that the Aseda package, an improvement on the Biggie package was just one of the exciting packages designed to increase customer base, saying, that in January 2006 onetouch would introduce the Mobile Content and later in the same year the General Pocket Radio Service (GPRS) and another product called EDGE.

Mobile Content, he said, was a facility that would allow customers to download ring tones, logos, weather information and breaking news among other things, adding that negotiations had been concluded with content providers already and all technical arrangements had also been completed.

Mr Bjorge said the GPRS would enable onetouch customers to have access to the Internet, browse on their phones and also send SMS via the Internet, a service that some post-paid customers were enjoying already. The occasion was also used to launch the onetouch new logo, whose brand font, colour scheme and key symbols were in tandem with those of the corporate logo.

The new logo has two yellow rings with onetouch written from the centre and out of the rings in small letter, unlike the previous logo which had ONE written in capital letters and "touch" in small letters.

Mr Bjorge said the new logo was designed to place onetouch on a certain pedestal in readiness for the exciting packages planned for 2006.

Mr Stephen Badu, General Manager, Marketing, announced that all U-touch customers had from November 30, 2005, been migrated onto the onetouch package as the latter offered a better deal for both the customers and GT.

He explained that under U-touch, customers paid 2,200 cedis per minute for daytime calls and 3,800 cedis per minute for IDD calls, while onetouch charged only 1,400 cedis and 3,500 cedis per minute for daytime and IDD calls, respectively. Moreover, he said, it was financially more prudent to develop promotional packages and media commercials for one brand with a better deal for all customers than to have different commercials for different brands

He said to date, onetouch local coverage area was 65 per cent and it was mounting five to 10 transmission poles every week to widen its coverage area. 30 Nov. 05