Kampala — Uganda's Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) on Wednesday completely liberalised its telecommunications infrastructure provisioning, effectively removing MTN Uganda and Uganda Telecom's exclusivity period.

Until Wednesday, only MTN and Uganda Telecom's could roll out infrastructure, while Celtel was only licensed to sell-provide. The change has made it possible for Celtel to compete more directly with MTN, as well as allowed several smaller players to make infrastructure available to other users.

The UCC said: "For purposes of providing a holistic licensing environment (services and infrastructure), the ministry of ICT has decided to open up the infrastructure market to full competition."

The commission said that as part of the liberalising, all players would be issued the same licence.

Uganda has moved quickly, especially when compared to the dawdling of some governments in Africa, to liberalise its telecoms market since a five-year exclusivity period that limited competition in basic telephony service, cellular telecommunications service and satellite service expired on July 24 2005.