As a toast, NITA Uganda made slight changes with its board chairman shifted to a new position and the authority executive director Mr. James Ssaka maintains his position as a Secretary on the board.

The official swearing-in ceremony was held yesterday at the Information Access Centre Wing housing the Ministry of ICT & National Guidance after an official board reveal to the public held eadlier last month at the Uganda media centre.

During the ceremony, the Incoming Board chairman Mr. John Musinguzi stressed one of the new NITA-U goals as strengthening service delivery to attain the body’s key fundamentals to harness opportunities for faster economic growth.

The new board is inaugurated in a time frame when NITA-U has stretched its wings in Uganda through [rpoejcts implementation. The authority’s major step front was its Phase IV backbone launch braced by H.E President Museveni as its recently unveiled Data center cruised in another window of recovery data sites.

Hence, with a new board to drive the ICT authority for the next 5 years, NITA’s authoritative strategy has now been shifted from just an infrastructure based wing to a full-throttle IT delivery provider with its new Vision ” Lives transformed through e-services delivery “

MTN Uganda has for all years since its launch in the country proved to be the biggest telco with a pile of subscribers to its Everywhere you Go network. Its to this point that the Yello camp always prefers to spoil subscribers with amazing deals and discounts off its data and voice offers not leaving out a series of give back promotions.

One of the most popular Mobile Money rewarding promotions the camp has ever compiled is the Momo Nyabo campaign that is running for its second round since 2018. The Mobile Money promotion was ushered in as a driver to the slashes OnNet sending fees and now a series of Winners have crusied away with brand new cars and motorbikes include the following awarded last week.

• Akello Anna — Motorbike Winner
• Golooba Moses _ Car Winner
• Godfrey Otukene — Car Winner
• Florence Nakanwagi — Car Winner

Huawei says Donald Trump’s promise wont have any heavy impacts

Before Huawei unveiled its inhouse custom Operating System branded as HongMeng, Google and More US tech companies had chose to break ties with the company over sanctions issued to the Chinese brand.
While Presdient Donald Trump recently inked a move to reinitieate Huawei back to the US, the Chinese company has called the promise as a no big change factor in their devlopment.

Huawei’s side was inked by its Chairman Liang Hua, who said that the lifting of Huawei’s ban from the US would help the company but would not have such a big impact given the fact that the country is already progressing to its next higher highs.

So far we haven’t seen any tangible change

Liang

“We’re not saying that just because things have relaxed a little, we’re fine with being on the blacklist,” he said. “Actually, we believe our listing on the blacklist should be lifted completely.”

NITA Uganda unveils Uganda’s 1st Live Tier III Data Center

After a long hold from Raxio’s announcmene to build the 1st Tier III data center in Uganda, NITA Uganda over the weekend awakened from its nAtional backbone extensions to an official unveiling of its live data center located in Jinja.

The Data center was launched by HE the Presdient of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni with full reducanct links availaing hosted Government services to the public. During the luanch, the Presidnet inked the new data center as a center of excellence for Ugandan Innovators and IT based services.

Infinix Mobile launches its Note 6 Smartphone in Uganda

Think of the Note 6 as a brillinat Systlus pen powered Smartphone borrowing the propularity streak of the Infinix Note 5 and Note 4 pro in an Android 9 populated year. Infinix Mobile unveiled the Smartphone on Monday and a brand new unit costs betweet UGX 749,000 and UGX 750,000 at all authorised outlets.

Facebook fined with $5bn over data privacy

Remember the Cambridge Analytica data scandal? Facebook was reportedly granting 3rd party providers access to user data and the US court has issued a $5bn penalty to the social media giant over the found guilty scandal.

However, does this put an end to low data privacy on all Facebook owned platforms? Its a goal that will be soon decided to since the blue coated company now aims at strengthening all user data and privacy after the levied fine is cleared to the authorities.

Over the weekend, NITA-U fulfilled its promise to the WestNile wing of the country by introducing the 4th phase of the National Backbone Internet project covering areas of Pakawach, Nebbi, Arua, Yumbe, Koboko, Adjumani, Katakwi plus the Uganda-SouthSudan / DRC border points of Oraba, Vurra and Mpondwe.

The 4th phase of the NBI project will not only connect the Northern districts and towns but also provide new International connections to neighboring countries with SouthSudan lying in the North and DRC sharing the eastern wing. In Simple terms, Phase IV is strictly tied to the Westnile Region as NITA-U further spread its e-services legion with free connections and web services for Government offices.

Though the NITA backbone Internet coverage favored the central and Western areas where the free WiFi via the MYUG SSID is a popular norm riding on the complete dd phase 1,2&3 lane. The planned phase IV coverage further stretches to the Karamoja region and preaching all the NITA-U services catalog a notch higher on the National Backbone.

However, does this mean Internet service providers will crawl and lower connection prices in return since a national backbone connection is available? It will be a matter of time once NITA-U succeeds in connecting all country towns and districts to the grid with more planned phases covering the greater West and East zones.

Well, In case you have always searched for a zone you can sniff free internet from, then riding on a free MYUG hotspot could be your ultimate chance to taste unbeatable internet speeds at no cost. With over 284 zones pumping the MYUG SSID out loud, here is the complete list of all locations you need to know for free Wi-Fi access without worrying about any Momo Pay or Airtel Pay approvals thereafter.

MYUG Free Wi-Fi locations

Though the question of full 4G internet access came to a close when Airtel widened its coverage map with other telcos also following the path. The query of free Wi-Fi is still drizzling in the veins of netizens with only MYUG hotspots pumping the no-cost feel in areas close the coverage zones.

More so, for the fact that NITA’s free service is limited to specific landmarks with most areas in Kampala having no feel of the hotspots but instead the central business district occupying the iced share of the cake. It becomes factual that free Wi-Fi in Uganda still has posses low demand as the roadblock towards a 100% achievement.

Hence, with Rokespot broadcasting in some areas like Mbarara where MYUG has not tasted the milky winds, the question of free Wi-Fi access might have new solutions in the near future only if the demand rises up to meet the required standards even with NITA already providing free access to every citizen.

All in all, whenever you bump into any MYUG zone, simply connect to the hotspot for free access by registering your email ID and keeping in line with the surfing hours capped to the service. As a matter of fact, MYUG is one of the best hotspots you can ride with for cheetah speeds, and connecting to one saves you from the burden of spending a 200/= OTT tax coin.

On the contrary, UCC was retained as a separate agency overseeing the ICT & media regulations unlike the story with NITA & NIRA. Henceforth, this means that the process of renewing or getting a new national ID will require you to visit the ministry headquarters as the story is with passports.

Agencies dissolved back to their respective ministries

Among the several bodies absorbed back to their respective ministries, NIRA & NITA will now be under the Internal affairs ministry and ICT respectively. While the electricity regulation authority previously increased the price of electricity by a slight margin. Umeme will now implement policies from one joint power outfit to be created soon as URSB now reverts to the ministry of justice in a compiled list of retained and absorbed agencies.

Dissolved agencies

• Uganda National Roads Authority
• Uganda Road Fund
• Uganda Railways Corporation
• Transport Licensing Board
• Uganda Registration Services Bureau
• Uganda Electricity Generation Co Limited
• Uganda Electricity Transmission Co Limited
• Uganda Electricity Distribution Co Limited
• Rural Electrification Agency
• Lotteries and Gaming Regulatory Board
• Departed Asians Properties Custodian Board
• National Agricultural Advisory Services Org
• Uganda Trypanosomiasis Control Council
• Dairy Development Authority
• Uganda Coffee Development Authority
• Cotton Development Organisation
• National Identification & Reg Authority NGO Bureau
• National Information Technology Authority
• Uganda Aids Commission
• National Drug Authority
• Uganda Blood Transfusion Services
• Uganda Industrial Research Institute
• Uganda National Council for Scie & Tech
• Uganda Land Commission

RETAINED

• Kampala Capital City Authority
• Uganda Communication Commission
• Uganda National Bureau of Standards
• Uganda Bureau of Statistics
• National Medical Stores