News

Lesotho Instantly Doubles Population's Access to Email · 28 Sep 2009

Econet Telecom Lesotho brings two-way email to their entire mobile customer base with ForgetMeNot Africa

A new service will bring email services to rural and urban areas across the African country of Lesotho via any mobile phone, more than doubling the population's access to email.

Lesotho's highly literate population struggles to access vital information, such as healthcare, travel and educational resources as according to the International Telecommunication Union only 3.4 per cent of the population use the Internet. Expanding the country's access to email via entry level, low end mobile phones will consequently improve access to information, communications with friends and family, and trade.

Econet Telecom Lesotho is the first African mobile service operator to enable their entire customer base to send and receive email via ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser service. The new service, which goes live on 28^th September 2009, enables Econet Telecom Lesotho to offer two-way email to their entire mobile customer base, without the end user requiring any Internet access, device upgrades or application downloads. 

Mpine Tente Head of Department Retail and Customer Service of Econet Telecom Lesotho said: "We are proud to be one of the first companies in Africa to significantly improve the population's access to email via ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser service which opens up email communications to our entire subscriber base irrespective of what phone they are using. Our mobile phone customers can now use email to share important information, communicate with family overseas or friends in another country, or even do business with people just a few miles down the road, all for the cost of a local SMS.  Message Optimiser sends and receives emails via SMS to any mobile phone."

ForgetMeNot Africa is a specialist in unified messaging for telecommunications operators. Their unique Handset Initiation (HI) technology bypasses the need for Internet access and opens up the service to all mobile phone users, even those in the remotest of areas.

Jeremy George, Chief Operating Officer of ForgetMeNot Africa commented: "Currently Lesotho's population has to share access to a little over 2,000 PCs connected to the Internet, most of which are in urban areas. Availability of  smartphones, laptops and even fixed line Internet connections is very low for this highly literate country. Using ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser, Econet Telecom Lesotho will bring mobile email to the entire Econet Telecom Lesotho subscriber base of both post and prepay customers across the country. The service will transform the country's low grade mobile phones into a stepping stone across the global digital divide."

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Notes To Editor

Figures were sourced from the International Telecommunication Union (www.itu.int)

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About ForgetMeNot Africa

ForgetMeNot Africa Ltd. is a "software as a service" (SaaS) company specialising in unified messaging that supports seamless interoperability between SMS, email and Instant Messaging clients for telecommunications operators.  The core product is Message Optimiser which allows telecom operators to immediately provide cost-effective comprehensive unified messaging services to all of their customers without any upgrades to the device or any need for downloading new applications onto the device. This opens up a range of previously inaccessible services to many of their customers including 2-way email and 2-way instant messaging communication capability.  For more information call +44 207 408 4730 or visit www.fmnafrica.com