Press releases

5 May 2005 :

NEW SIM PUBLIC PHONE TO REVOLUTIONISE RURAL AFRICA A UK company that is set to bring cell phone use to the most isolated areas of Africa stole the show at the GSM Africa Conference late last year with enquiries flooding in for its public phone. Africa is the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market, with the total number of subscribers as of September 2004 hitting 70 million. However, as many of the continent’s 800 million residents are based in rural communities, penetrating hard-to-reach areas is the telecom industry’s main challenge in terms of cellular connectivity this decade. equatel Limited is the UK firm behind a revolutionary new public telephone that accepts both pre-paid and ‘pay-as-you-go’ SIM cards. The rechargeable SIM cards are personal and each subscriber receives their own cell phone number, allowing them to make calls, receive voicemail and send and receive text messages at network PAYG rates from any equatel public phone. The cost-effective public telephone invention eradicates the restrictions of users having to undergo credit status checks and high air-time rates that subscribed cell phone users can be subject to in African countries. The durability of the SIM public phone also counteracts the problems of using a cell phone handset in rigorous conditions and the high cost which is out of reach of many rural Africans. Appearing like a normal pay phone, the GSM and CDMA-compatible phone will work on any cellular network. The public phone can bolt onto any wall, and requires no external cables or power supply if ordered with supplemental power options. It is completely weather, fire and vandal proof, accepts credit-card sized SIM cards, and can display text or graphics on its display screen. It will allow free calls to emergency or other numbers and will accept incoming calls even without a SIM card inserted. The company attended the GSM Conference in Cape Town at the end of 2004 and GSM West Africa in Dakar, Senegal last month, to showcase the prototype model of the equatel SIM Public Phone, testing reaction from the African networks, Regulators, MVNOs, potential partners and distributors to learn what specifications they would require. With several organisations wishing to place large orders on the spot, equatel’s innovation team were inundated with enquiries for the product from countries across Africa and outside the continent. They will be meeting many interested parties again to discuss taking the projects further, at GSM East Africa in Mombasa, Kenya on the 2nd and 3rd June. Aron Sandler of equatel Limited, says: “The equatel SIM public phone is set to revolutionise the communications shortage in rural areas in developing countries. The current African cellular landscape is seeing many networks under directives from Regulators to penetrate rural communities with new telecoms solutions – our SIM Public Phone is providing a solution to a long-standing problem which before has had no cost-effective and easy-to-maintain solution. “As we can currently tailor the invention to any design or customer specification, we are engaging in preliminary talks with several interested parties for rolling out the concept across various regions of Africa. Many of those potential customers see tackling the issue of rural communications as their top priority, and they saw our public telephone product as an answer to their prayers. We even had offers to buy the prototypes off the exhibition stand!” To make contact with equatel Limited or to arrange to meet with them at GSM East Africa in Kenya 2-3 June regarding the equatel SIM Public Phone call +44 (0) 191 482 7690 www.equatel.com Ends Back to news