Commercial Court Division
upon recommendation of The Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) can grant
such a licence. Such a licence once granted under Section 41 of The UCA shall not be
used for a purpose other than that for which it was issued. These provisions would
affect telecommunication companies operating in Uganda.
The UCA does not
expressly provide for licensing operators outside Uganda or for the use of the country
code +256 by an operator outside Uganda.
The above notwithstanding Gemtel was allowed to use Uganda’s country code of
+256 and was assigned by UTL the subsequent digits of 477 xx which originally were
reserved for traffic to Northern Uganda. There was no opposition whether by The
Government of Uganda, the UCC as regulator or MTN for that matter to this
arrangement. Traffic began to flow for purposes of this dispute from MTN to Gemtel
subscribers on +256 47 xxx. Whether this was an assignment or an allocation or a
loan of the code to my mind is more of an academic than a substantive issue. The
facts on record are that this occurred. The parameters of this arrangement can be
derived from the letter of Ugandan Minister Eng. Nasasira referenced MIN/PERs/63 of
the 10th May, 2006(Exh. P.6). It appears that the Minister had received professional
advice on the matter most likely from UCC as he refers to them at the end of his
letter. There are four points to note out of the Ugandan Minister’s letter.
First he writes:-
“… Indeed all the Uganda operators can provide services to Southern
Sudan either by extending their network coverage to the area or by
using the Gemtel network, as long as the Government of Southern
Sudan permits them to …”
The point the Minister is making here is that UTL or indeed any other operator in
Uganda can extend telecommunication services to Southern Sudan. Of course this
means that Uganda’s country code +256 would have to be used to achieve this
purpose. To my mind, the Minister states a purely technical possibility but does not
ground it in any legal authority either clothed on him or otherwise.
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