Vodafone Fiji sponsorship manager, Liga Gukisuva (left) with head of mCommerce & Corporate Affairs, Shailendra Prasad, take the media through its 19th birthday promotions at the Vodafone Fiji headquarters in Suva yesterday. Photo: MEG WILFORD
By RACHNA LAL and
RANOBA BAOA
Vodafone Fiji Limited, a subsidiary of the Amalgamated Telecom Holdings Group, continues to strive for excellence as it marks 19 years of operations in the country.
Vodafone Fiji has upgraded its network and head of mCommerce & Corporate Affairs, Shailendra Prasad, said they now cover 95 per cent of Fiji with 3G network.
“So you can pretty much have data coverage or accessibility around 95 per cent of Fiji,” he said.
“One of the things we have done is that last year we upgraded our entire core network where we basically did a transformation network.”
“We got rid of the old network and put in a completely new network including the core network which meant that we’ve changed the towers, the radio based station etc.
Birthday promotions
As Vodafone celebrates its 19th birthday in July, it has announced big promotions for this month.
“We’re giving away 19 each of Samsung Galaxy S4, the most sought-after phone, then we have 19 iPhone 5, 19 HTC phones, 19 Getek netbooks and 19 Huawei tablets,” Mr Prasad said.
“The good thing about the promotion is you don’t have to actually do anything extra apart from what you have been doing all along.
“If you make a mobile call or even do a top up of your mobile where you buy a top up from the shop, you top up your mobile and you automatically go in the draw.”
Promotion for schools
Vodafone is also doing a little something for schools in the rural areas to facilitate internet access for rural schools.
Mr Prasad said rural schools are not as well-resourced, don’t have proper libraries and facilities,” he said.
“What we’re doing is urging the parents, students to try and text the name of their school.
“The school that registers the high number of votes at the end of July will walk away with the 19 netbooks for their school.”
On par with tech
Mr Prasad said one of the things they are very proud of was in the manner the company has performed.
“We have been growing really well to deliver the expectations as well to our stakeholders,” he said.
“As a company, in terms of mobile communications technologies, we are keeping abreast and up-to-date with what is happening around the world.
“What we’re offering in terms of technology, it’s second-to-none in the world.
“We are also ready for the next wave of technology evolution and these would be announced in the near future.”
Mobile penetration
Mr Prasad stressed Fiji is a very highly mobile-penetrated market so they cannot give an exact number of how many customers they have.
“Our mobile penetration is probably around 110 per cent so there are more phones and gadgets compared to the number of people in the country,” he said.
“What we count is the number of active connections in the network and people now have a phone and a data connection so the same person could have two connections.
“I can say we have 750,000 to 800,000 connections through the network and we have room for more.”