Kigali: Telecom operators in Rwanda have embraced tariff wars to retain their customers and attract new ones.

This comes less than two months after telecoms appealed to the government protesting that an increase in excise duty on airtime from 5% to 8% coupled with extremely high operating costs and regulatory fees could reduce their investment in the sector limiting their capacity to grow and to offer affordable services to telecom consumers in the country.

All the three operators MTN Rwanda, Tigo Rwanda and Rwandatel are currently involved in a fight that could see customers enjoy lower calling rates. The war started early this year after Tigo, the new entrant launched with the most affordable call rates.

Tigo started with Rwf90 per minute when making a call and Rwf25 when sending a short message on all local networks.

This was followed by lower call and messaging rates. Calling was and remains Rwf10 per minute while sms was Rwf1 on Tigo to Tigo.

The new rates prompted MTN Rwanda to lower call rates on its MTN Zone as low as Rwf10 per minute during the weekends.

Rwandatel reacted with a Rfw500 promotion allowing the customer to talk for 24 four hours nonstop on the same network.

Tigo's plan proved to be effective and it helped the company to beat Rwandatel, which was the second largest in terms of subscribers. According to the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), which regulates telecoms among other sectors, MTN Rwanda was leading the sector followed Tigo and Rwandatel respectively in terms of mobile subscribers as of June. MTN had 2,200,111 subscribers, TIGO had 529,114 and Rwandatel had 443,534, according to statistics published on RURA website.

But Rwandatel's Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Mr. Francis Egbuson says that currently Rwandatel has 561,000 subscribers.

The company has started a new aggressive call and sms tariff that is currently the most affordable in the market. Mr. Egbuson announced on Tuesday last week that Rwandatel customers will be calling on Rwf3 per minute but this will be applicable only on Rwandatel lines.