Thursday, February 2, 2012

Early signs?

It's been a while that I've been seeing new GSM antennas rising from roof tops of some buildings in Kigali. This got me curious, wondering if the new transceivers were from the awaited Airtel. Obviously, the new operator should be by now 'cooking' its new network and performing some tests before the official launch.

I decided to do some sniffing of the waves around us with my handset, looking for signs of Airtel. I have to say my results were totally unexpected. Here are 2 snapshots from my handset.




63513 stands for Tigo network (don't ask me why people from Tigo didn't put a name to their network), R-CELL for MTN and VodaCom for???? TELECEL-BDI???

Now that got me thinking how Vodacom is being picked up in Kigali! Telecel operates in Burundi. How is it showing up in Kigali? Are they towers being under test by Airtel? Why would they bare these names from operators outside the country? I couldn't find any plausible answer to these questions.

5 comments:

  1. may be its because of roaming services...

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    Replies
    1. Can't be. When roaming, only the local network shows up

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    2. May this is caused by uncertaineity in coverage and a highly sensitive device used

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  2. What z diz!!!!may b it's a confusion made by your device,did u managed 2 ask anyone from RURA?

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    Replies
    1. Didn't get in touch with RURA. But it's not a bad idea though

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