Tigo Ghana has officially launched the lowest call rate of seven pesewas per minute for all Tigo-to-Tigo calls. The new offer, dubbed 007, was launched with host Chris Attoh playing James Bond 007 in his uptight suite and bow tie, flanked by seven ladies in the Tigo blue brand colour. The event was also pepped up by a performance by the vintage Ghanaian and Pan-African Hip-life trio, VIP, who sang a new song for the first time titled “Change Position”. Consumer Manager at Tigo Ghana Rosy Fynn noted that though data services was fast taking over the telecom industry, voice was still a major revenue area in Ghana so Tigo wanted to offer voice customers that most affordable rate to make them talk more for less. She said the offer was not a promotion that customers would have to register for, but a default rate for every Tigo customer, except it was limited to Tigo-to-Tigo calls. “But it is important to note that we have also reduced our call rates to other networks from 16 pesewas to 12 pesewas per minutes, which is the second lowest after Airtel’s 8 pesewas.” Rosy Fynn noted that the offer was not intended as a mobile number portability (MNP) package because Tigo had been planning this offer long before the MNP and it is a mere coincidence that it came after MNP. Vodafone had stuck out its neck to say it had the best MNP welcoming package, but Rosy Fynn contended that Tigo’s 007 offer beats competition hands down in terms of MNP welcoming packages because consumers were interested in long-term offers that could make them talk long for less, and that was what 007 offered. She said the 007 offer came to add to the recently launched Tigo3.5G, which also offered the “most affordable” bundle packages and therefore positioned Tigo as the most customer-centric network. “You have insurance on you Tigo phone today – you can send money across networks on your Tigo phone – you can even send money to pay your school fees on Tigo today - with these offers on Tigo, you can’t afford not to move to Tigo,” she said. Communications Category Manager for Tigo, Maame Ama Owusu Arhin said beside the 007, the 12 pesewas per minute off-network rate and the most affordable data bundles, Tigo also had four tariff plans to suit different categories of customers. She mentioned the four plans as Triple Bonus on every reload for call to all networks, Triple Bonus IDD on every reload for call to landlines in USA, Canada, China, and the UK; SuperZone, which provided heavy discounts from one location of the customer’s choice; and Stop the Clock, which enabled the customer to talk for 10 whole minutes and pay for only the first three minutes for Tigo-to-Tigo call only. “This year we set out to be the most customer-centric network on the market…and we are aware that affordability remains a very critical factor affecting brand choice in our market and that is why we have offered 007 and all its supporting tariff plans,” she said. Tigo is the second largest network operator in Ghana with a subscriber base of a little over four million customers as at June 2011. Story by: Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona/Adom News/Ghana