Effective today, 27th October 2016, Airtel Uganda will offer users of its WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook (WTF) bundles 40% less data for the same giveaway price. This, we are told, is to allow Airtel to optimise resources and give us a better customer experience.
In this regard, for every 100MBs you load for WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, or the Social pack, Airtel goes slash! slash! slash! What you end up with is a paltry 60MBs to be exact and far less data to socialise on the Smartphone Network. Well it’s not all bad. You still get to load these bundles at only UGX 200 and UGX 500 only for the social pack.
Moving on, the Weekly WTF bundle fares no better. Airtel slashes 20% off the 400MBs you are accustomed to getting for UGX 2,000. 80MBs down the digital drain. Airtel is striving to give better customer experience, after all, no?
Also facing an axe is the OIB Bronze and Gold bundles. OIB stands for Office-in-a-Box, an Airtel package to ‘provide the SME entrepreneur with one single package bundled with all the necessary airtel services to meet their communication needs.’ Airtel went slash! slash! on this data bundles too, reducing them by 30% and 20% respectively.
The quarterly 50GB bundle going at UGX 450,000 didn’t escape either shaving 30% off. What we can tell you is that whatever Airtel is doing, other telcos have done before and during that time, Airtel resisted the urge to follow suit. And we loved them for it. That doesn’t appear to be the case any longer. A pity.