Unitel S.A. is a private

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

company which was established on 8 March 2001 as a joint-stock company. The company is owned by the Angolan state, having been nationalised in 2022.

Operations and location

The seat of the company is

Luanda Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport ...

. It has about 2.000 employees and a network coverage nearly in all the provincial municipalities since 2002. Unitel sells its services via a network of shops; recharging cards for pre-paid contracts are also sold by individual street sellers all over Angola. Prepaid cards can also be recharged via the

Multicaixa Multicaixa (MCX) is currently the only brand name for debit cards issued in Angola, and also the only interbank network of automated teller machines and point of sales terminals for electronic payments. While the ATMs and the POS (point of sal ...

network of ATM's. Unitel claims to have 9 million customers out of a population of estimated 18 to 20 million people.

Network

Unitel operates a network based on

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

and

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

standards, and provides voice communications, text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages, and mobile internet access. Contracts are available as post-paid and pre-paid. Since December 2011, Unitel covers all Angolan municipalities, by installing a transmitter in

Rivungo Rivungo is a town and municipality in Cuando Cubango Province in Angola. It is situated on the Cuando River The Cuando River (or Kwando in the non-colonial spelling) is a river in south-central Africa flowing through Angola and Namibia's Capr ...

, Kuando Kubango province; a station which is operated by solar power.

Tariff

The tariff is calculated in UTT (Unidade Tarifária de Telecomunicações - Telecommunication Tariff Units), a common tariff unit used by all telecommunication companies in Angola. The price of one UTT was 10

Kwanza The kwanza (sign: Kz; ISO 4217 code: ) is the currency of Angola. Four different currencies using the name kwanza have circulated since 1977. The currency derives its name from the Kwanza River (Cuanza, Coanza, Quanza). Overview First kwanza ...

s in 2016. Recharging cards are available with 125 UTT, 375 UTT, 625 UTT and 1250 UTT for 900 Kwanzas respectively 2700 Kwanzas etc. Post-paid contracts can also be paid by bank transfer or direct debit from a bank account. The Unitel phone numbers begin with 92, 93 and 94.

Ownership and nationalisation

The company was previously owned by Oi and Helios (through Africatel), Angolan state-owned oil company

Sonangol Group Sonangol ( pt, Grupo Sonangol) is a parastatal that formerly oversaw petroleum and natural gas production in Angola. The group consisted of Sonangol E.P. ( pt, Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola, E.P.) and its many subsidiaries. ...

and local firms like Geni holding (through Mercury), and Vidatel owned by

Isabel dos Santos Isabel dos Santos (; born 20 April 1973) is an Angolan businesswoman, the eldest child of Angola's former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country as a dictator from 1979 to 2017. Once considered Africa's richest woman accordi ...

, each holding 25% of Unitel. In October 2022, Angolan President President Joao Lourenco issued a decision finalising the nationalising of Unitel, ending the links of

, the daughter of Angolan longtime ex-president, with the operator.

References

External links