NaijaTalkTalk- Smile Comms just gave Nigerians their first Voice over LTE service

SmileVoice

Today, Smile Communications announced SmileVoice. It’s a Voice over LTE service, which means you can now use your normal SmileData bundle to make both voice/video calls and SMSs.
This is interesting because just yesterday, I wrote about how local telecoms companies are attempting to resist OTT services, like Whatsapp, and Skype. How, many people would rather use VoIP services, than the traditional call/SMS paradigm.

To get SmileVoice working, all you need to do is chuck a Smile SIM into any VoLTE-compatible mobile phone. If you don’t have one of those, you can just download the app from either the Google PlayStore, or the Apple App Store.

How to get started with the app?

1. Install the SmileVoice mobile app on your mobile phone, and select your country.
2. Use your Smile-registered email to request an activation code
3. Check your email box for the activation code
4. Enter your registered SmileVoice number and activation code into the app
5. The app will get activated and you can begin making calls
Smile is offering 30 free minutes for everyone who signs up for the service. Of course, the call charges are denominated in megabytes, but a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that it comes down to around 8.79 kobo per second, which is cheaper than usual call tariffs (those range from 11 – 40 kobo per second).
OTT is “spoiling market” for local telcos. I’d like to see how the NCC reacts to this development.