STWS captures key element of South African mobile market

STWS, the low-cost voice and data provider for the African market is capturing a key element of the fast growth South African mobile market through the provision of low-cost landline to mobile services for businesses.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday 2nd May, 2002

STWS CAPTURES KEY ELEMENT OF SOUTH AFRICAN MOBILE MARKET

London, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth (Thursday 2nd May, 2002) - STWS, the low-cost voice and data provider for the African market, today confirmed that it is capturing a key element of the fast growth South African mobile market through the innovative provision of low-cost landline to mobile phone services for businesses.

With South Africa currently the world's fourth fastest growth market for mobile use - and 30 million cell phones currently in use on the African continent - STWS, through its local subsidiary Storm, enables landline to mobile calls to be routed off the Telkom fixed line network.

Tim Wyatt-Gunning, Managing Director of Storm, STWSs local brand, commented:
"By taking advantage of fixed cell technology, we have been able to significantly reduce the costs associated with calling mobile phones from landlines.

To date over 800 businesses have already taken advantage of the service with Storm, cutting their costs from R1.60 a minute to as little as R.99. These businesses make over a million landline to mobile calls a month. Storm is continuing to sign up around 100 companies a month to the service.

Tim Parsonson, Director of STWS added:
"Whilst the core retail market for the product is currently South Africa, we believe the solution is highly relevant to other key African markets where fixed networks are less developed. Fixed cell technology has the advantage of providing network capacity in areas where networks are volatile or yet to be installed."

STWS currently provides low-cost voice and data services to over 3,500 businesses in South Africa through its Storm brand and operates in a further three African markets through local resellers which rebrand STWSs services.

About STWS
Founded in 1998, STWS is a low-cost voice and data service provider for the African market. With access into 12 African countries, the company is at the forefront of the telecom deregulation process on the African continent.

Through its retail brand, Storm, STWS is a leading independent provider of voice and data services to businesses in South Africa currently delivering phone, fax, internet access and related data services to 3500 businesses in the country. With its IP infrastructure and expertise, the company is well positioned to offer converged voice and data services over one network to the business market once deregulation permits.

For Further information:
   Pamela Shabi (gth media)            +44 207 467 0607
   Tim Parsonson (STWS)               +27 11 202 3000