Beginning Saturday, April 23, 2022, all Glo Mobile customers in Ghana will be moved unto the AirtelTigo network.
This is contained in a circular from Glo to it over 800,000 customers informing them about a strategic partnership between the telcos.
The same circular is also published on the AirtrlelTigo website.
The circular read “In a bid to provide wider coverage and a faster internet experience for its customers, network operator, Glo has entered into a nationwide National Roaming arrangement with AirtelTigo for voice, data and SMS services.”
It continued: “In this strategic business with AirtelTigo, all Glo customers will automatically latch onto the AirtelTigo network by 23rd April 2022.”
The circular urged Glo customers who face any difficulty in automatically latching onto the AirtelTigo network to manually select AirtelTigo network in their phone/device’s network settings and enable Data Roaming under Mobile Data Network Settings o enjoy superior experience on the AirtelTigo network.
It however noted that all other conditions of service remain unchanged, explaining that Glo customers will continue to recharge with Glo scratch cards or electronic credit transfers and enjoy all existing Glo products including Value Added Services.
“Glo customers may dial the existing customer helping 100 or 0230010100 for assistance. They could also visit the Glo customer experience center, or alternatively, dial AirtelTigo’s helpline 0260000100 for prompt resolution of any service issue,” the circular said.
Background
AirtelTigo is a merger between Airtel and Tigo, after the original owners of the two telcos, Bharti Airtel of India and Millicom Cellular PLC of Sweden packed out of the country and sold the merged entity to the government of Ghana for a reported US$1 with considerable liabilities.
AirtelTigo’s merger was expected to provide some competition for the runaway market leader, MTN, but it failed to live up to that expectation. Currently AirtelTigo is number three on the market, behind Vodafone, in terms of subscriber base.
Meanwhile, Glo itself has been struggling since it entered the Ghanaian market in 2012 with a bang, promising to provide everything “like never before”. Ghanaians have since been waiting for the fulfilment of those promises.
What the country has rather witnessed from Glo is a repeated change of Head of Business in Ghana, a cut back on coverage area, and a continuous dwindling of customer base and market share.
Industry watchers have always said that the size of the Ghana market required just about three key players to ensure that the market delivers value to investors. Mergers and acquisitions have always been something to look forward to in Ghana, and it seems to be happening gradually.
It started with MTN Ghana acquiring the spectrum of one of the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licensees, Goldkey Telecoms, who never rolled out after acquiring the license for US$6 million.
Expresso, the sole CDMA player then folded up, followed by the AirtelTigo merger. Then, recently, Vodafone Ghana and the leading BWA player, Surfline got approve to roll out their white label strategy, on the back of which Vodafone launched their Smart Surf routers powered by Surfline.
Now Glo is moving its over 800,000 customers onto the AirtelTigo network in a move that looks like either Glo is metamorphosing into a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) or there is a merger between the two telcos.
Duopoly
This also brings into sharp focus, the recent report by Techgh24 that government is mulling a duopoly in the country’s telecom space.
Now Airtel, Tigo and Glo are virtually one entity now. It is left with Vodafone to join that squad and the duopoly will be achieved.
Time will tell.
