130,000 Internet users now on Glo Mobile

Mobile Internet, The, Feb, 2005

Glo Mobile Internet, Globacom's General Packet Radio Services (GPRS)-based WAP service, has recorded patronage of 130,000 subscribers in six months, making Nigeria the fastest-growing Mobile Data market in Africa.

The service was launched in August last year. Glo Mobile Internet, which is available to both prepaid and postpaid subscribers of Glo Mobile, provides high-speed access to all popular WAP-enabled Internet sites such as Yahoo, MSN, Google, CNN, and BBC. Subscribers to the service are thus able to send emails to loved ones and access favorite Internet sites at affordable rates. They are not charged by the time they spend online, but by the amount of data actually downloaded. This is calculated at 70k per Kilobyte, which makes the service extremely affordable. At an average size of 4 Kilobyte per WAP page, the subscriber just pays N2.80k for a WAP page download. Moreover, due to the superior WAP over GPRS connectivity provided by Glo Mobile, the Internet sites are accessed much faster than what is currently available. Company sources stated that Globacom will continue to aggressively pursue a mobile data strategy through the launch of a number of next-generation data products. The sources added that the network is committed to making Nigeria the biggest mobile data market in Africa. The mobile data market is expected to grow exponentially in the next few months with the entry of more and more GPRS-enabled handsets at more affordable rates. Since it commenced services in August 2003, Globacom has launched a number of value-added services meant to ensure that Nigerians get the benefits of the very best of advances made in the telecommunications technology and demonstrate that subscribers can enjoy additional services beyond the common calls and text messages on their mobiles.

These include Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS), which enables the combination of text, sound, and pictures in one message on mobile phones; and Text2email, which allows subscribers to send and receive text messages to and from any email address on their mobile phones. Glo Mobile also launched Magic Plus, which provides access to information, business, sports, and entertainment news.