Kampala — Phone users here should continue to anticipate more freebies courtesy of the big-budget campaigns by the country's telecommunications companies as the sector jacks up.

The cut throat competition, though often denied by the top most executives, early this month took a new twist with market leaders MTN Uganda announcing that its mobile phone customers will get back half the value of each airtime voucher they load during its promotion dubbed '50% extra joy'.

Two days down the MTN offer, Celtel Uganda also announced an identical promotion to the latter's dubbed 'Asante Lets Celebrate'.

If a subscriber on MTN or Celtel for example loaded a Ush20,000 (US$11.76) recharge voucher, they would get Ush10,000 ($5.88) free airtime.

Perhaps not wanting to be left out or referred to as copy cats, uganda telecom, laying low and watching its two rivals sweat it out with carbon copy campaigns, dropped the bombshell of all offers a week later; free calls for their subscribers.

As the saying goes, you can not have your cake and eat it. The 50% bonus airtime on MTN and Celtel is restricted to calling or texting the respective home network on week days between 10 o'clock in the evening to 8 o'clock in the morning.

While MTN and Celtel airtime purchased at the weekend also accrues a similar bonus, it can only be used during the week.

The respective subscribers must also exhaust their bonus airtime as any balances will be forfeited at the end of the promotions.

With the uganda telecom offer dubbed '100% free calls', subscribers only have to top up every day to enjoy the free calls to and from the mobile service between 11 o'clock in the evening to 7 o'clock in the morning.

Although two new firms; Hits telecom and Warid telecom are scheduled to join the lucrative market in November, Uganda currently has three active telecom firms with a combined subscriber base of over 3.5 million.

Competition has been the order of the day in the recent past with the telecoms even subsidising call tariffs for particular time bands and carefully picked destinations on special occasions.

Executives at the telecom firms told East African Business Week that the promotions had impressively increased their subscriber base.

The offers are not yet done. Ugandans, carrying on with their daily routine should enjoy the promotional offers that are expected to intensify as Hits and Warid, with million dollar budgets ready to jump into the melee.