eBusiness Weekly
Africa Moyo
The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) says time has come for telecommunications companies to share infrastructure so as to reduce the cost of their products.Telecommunications services and products are generally priced above the reach of many, making a strong case for a reduction in tariffs.
Players in the ICTs sector claim high costs associated with acquiring and setting up infrastructure are responsible for the obtaining relatively higher tariffs.
But there is a feeling that if operators, particularly mobile phone players, share infrastructure, the costs would considerably come down.
Telecommunications players have been haggling over infrastructure sharing in the past, with some saying they would not want to share infrastructure with peers who focused on investing in “state-of-the-art offices and vehicles” and not offices.
However, Potraz director general Gift Machengete this week said as the march towards availing telecommunications infrastructure to the last two million people without connectivity across the country mainly in rural areas, it was imperative that the services are affordable.
“As we now move to address connectivity requirements for the last 15 percent of our population, it is important to bear in mind the crucial importance of affordability to consumers in general and bottom of the pyramid consumers, in particular,” he said while launching the Maitengwe Universal Services Fund base station.
“Connectivity without affordability is futile and meaningless to the intended beneficiaries. It is therefore important that every player in the ecosystem plays their part in ensuring that quality services are provided at affordable rates.
“As already alluded to, infrastructure sharing goes a long way in introducing investment and operational efficiencies. We therefore urge operators to collaborate more on infrastructure build-out while competing vigorously on service provision.”
The Maitengwe USF base station is being shared by all the three mobile phone operators; NetOne, Telecel and Econet.
Recently, Potraz has reduced local mobile data and internet charges after concluding a cost modelling exercise for telecommunication network services in the country covering mobile, fixed and internet access networks.
The new tariffs reflect that out-of-mobile data charges have come down to 5 cents per megabyte from 12,5 cents.
The national interconnection rate also went down from 4 cents per minute to 2 cents with effect from July 1.
The costing exercise by Detecon, a German firm, was based on the long-run-incremental costing (LRIC) models it set in 2014.
Mr Machengete said reasonable ground has been covered on the affordability front, but more needs to be done at “policy, regulatory and operator levels” to secure further reductions in service cost and consequently, affordability.
At policy level we believe sector specific taxes should be reconsidered as the net effect of such taxes is imposing a penalty on consumers for using ICTs.
“There is, therefore, no doubt that the current tax regime on airtime is hurting consumers, in particular the bottom of the pyramid consumers that I have just talked about.
“For instance, why should ugogo from here (Maitengwe) be charged excise duty for buying her groceries using Ecocash, Telecash or OneMoney? Why should a teacher at Maitengwe School be charged excise duty for doing research on internet, for transferring an amount into a mother’s wallet for her monthly medication or for calling a spouse who works elsewhere in Zimbabwe to reinforce their love and affection?”
Mr Machengete said through the launch of the Maitengwe base station, the telecommunications sector is in fact celebrating infrastructure sharing.
