A 4G LTE wireless provider in Uganda and East Africa, Smile Telecom, claims that its nearly 15-month service outage is the result of an illegal network disconnection by American Tower Corporation (ATC). In a lawsuit, the carrier claimed the service cutoff is “contrary to ATC’s license obligations, industry best practices, and most importantly, the well-being of the Ugandan people,” reported the APO Group African News Room.
The tower company turned off the system in February 2022, after winning an award in arbitration, which was apparently not paid.
The dispute appears to have begun in 2018. Ever since, the two companies have been arguing over ATC’s pricing practices, including the amount of money it was collecting for power. In 2021, the matter went into the arbitration process.
“ATC was collecting around 50 percent more than the tariffs set by the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Uganda. These disputes were duly referred to arbitration in accordance with the underlying contracts,” according to Smile.
Smile has since filed a lawsuit against ATC Uganda, claiming damages of $120 million. Interestingly, the company’s stakeholders have approved a refinancing agreement of $120 million in February to enable the operator to resume its Ugandan operations, according to WeeTracker. That does not appear to have happened yet.
American Tower could not be reached for comment by press time.
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