01 February 2023

MTN Uganda has announced a five-year strategic partnership with Huawei Technologies to transform and modernize its network towards a cloud-native 5G-capable core network. The ‘MUNA project’ is part of the greater MTN Group MUNIC strategy that will see MTN Uganda’s network evolve into an all-cloud core network.

“Through this project, we are modernizing our core network to get ready for 5G in the near future in Uganda. However, this modernization will also help us immediately in delivering a better quality of our voice network,” said Ali Monzer, chief technical and information officer at MTN Uganda.

The initiative will enable MTN Uganda to have a future-oriented network with greater service agility, innovation for both consumer and industrial verticals, differentiation, improved operation efficiency and better customer experiences with higher data speeds and reduced latency.

“As MTN Uganda, we have always been the front runner of evolving technology in this country,” said MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer, Sylvia Mulinge. “In 2020, we were the first operator in East Africa to do a successful 5G network demonstration. While that was a non-commercial exhibition, this modernization of our network comes in as a precursor of the 5G capabilities which Uganda is going to experience soon.”

The project implementation will take on a phased approach overseen by Huawei technologies for the five years. This is expected to culminate into a unification of the different existing legacy core network elements into a single vendor and simplified easy-to-manage cloud-native core network.

“I welcome the collaboration between MTN Uganda and Huawei Technologies. We are soon launching the transition to 5G. This will not only help MTN, but other telecom companies as well to have improved Quality of Service. In this journey of digital transformation, we are running as a country, to keep pace with the rest of the world,” said Hon. Dr Chris Baryomunsi, minister for ICT & National Guidance, Uganda. “This intervention is in line with the country’s vision 2040 that aims at transformation of our society.”

“We, at Huawei Technologies are proud to cement our 20-year strategic partnership with MTN Uganda with yet another future-oriented cloud-native 5G Core network initiative,” said Gavin Gaofei, managing director at Huawei Uganda. “We are even more excited about the potential of the solution towards stripping away complexities and creating simplicity to maximize business value and best-in-class customer experiences for Uganda.”