Technomag
The Government has repeatedly indicated that it is committed to ensure the successful Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation, which is commendable but the same commitment should also be evident on the ground. The Zim-Asset document, which is a five-year plan that will run until 2018, is built around four strategic clusters that will enable Zimbabwe to achieve economic growth and reposition the country as one of the strongest economies in the region and Africa.

The four strategic clusters identified are: Food Security and Nutrition; Social Services and Poverty Eradication; Infrastructure and Utilities; and Value Addition and Beneficiation.

Information communication technologies are mentioned under priority area 2 within the Infrastructure and Utilities Cluster. The policy states that it seeks “To develop and review appropriate ICT legislation and policies.”

ICTs are also referred to in the Social Services and Poverty Eradication Cluster under section 7.2.3 as a strategy to promote utilisation of ICTs as a fundamental tool for economic turnaround.

While the priority area 2, clearly stipulates the need to “review appropriate ICT legislation and policies”, it is unfortunate that this has not been done with one of the critical issues being the high  VSAT Technology landing fees that were announced through Statutory Instrument 115 of 2013 section 6.1.

According to Statutory Instrument, “An Annual fee payable in advance, per each VSAT station in full will be $1 500 while the annual fees for MSS Terminal calls  is $1 000,00.

This means that before any business ventures into selling VSATs it would first need to ensure that it has a capacity to remit up to $1 000 in fees per every user annually, obviously this cost will have to be passed on to the user.

Every service provider will be forced to add $125 every month before costs to any client seeking their service, before adding on high installation or setup fees involved in setting up such technology plus their own mark ups.

Regrettably, the current  landing rights makes  VSAT  business expensive for service providers who are being forced to pass on costs to the marginalised  special  interest groups who need the technology such as schools, colleges, farms and hospitals in remote areas. VSAT technology is meant to connect internet to those areas where high speed connectivity like fibre optic or wimax cannot reach due to operational costs involved hence the global satellite communication is the only solution. While it may make sense for the authority to ask all satellites to be hosted locally, it costs close to a million to have an international standard hub locally which is beyond the capacity of most VSAT service providers.

VSAT service providers have been lobbying the regulator, the Postal and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe on the matter. Potraz as a regulator is mandated to ensure the provision of sufficient telecommunications services in the country and have to ensure independent financial viability of the same service providers.

The tariff system should also take into account the viability of Internet Access Providers, Internet Service Providers who unlike individual corporates are not being asked to pay any annual contribution towards licences and service fees.

You Might Also Like

Comments

Take our Survey

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey