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The turf war between cellphone service providers appears to be escalating with Econet Wireless Zimbabwe heading for a potentially explosive showdown with the Postal and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority.This follows Econet’s angry reaction to Potraz’s directive for it to reverse the 60 percent discount for calls across all networks that it announced recently. Econet this week expressed disappointment at the directive saying it will take necessary steps to protect the interests of its customers and ensure competitiveness in the market.

“The regulator is there to create a level playing field. We are not aware of any similar order being given to other operators who are freely offering similar discounts. Even when other operators violated key conditions of their licence, we did not see any such threats being made. Now when we take steps to deliver affordable services to our own customers, we are barred,” Econet said in a statement.

Potraz acting director-general Mr Alfred Marisa, however, said that they were well within their authority to call for a reversal of the discount.
“Tariffs charged by operators are regulated in terms of Section 100 of the Postal and Telecommunications Act, Chapter 12:05. As such, any increase or decrease in tariffs has to be approved by the authority in order to safeguard consumers as well as promote fair competition.

This applies even where an operator wishes to offer promotions to its customers,” he said.
Mr Marisa said Econet had erred by introducing the promotion when they had not initially applied for regulatory approval and their only concern is for Econet to regularise this discrepancy. The authority said it approved Econet’s Dynamic Tariffing Pricing Plan and its terms and conditions in July 2012.

“What the authority approved is different from what Econet is offering now as its Buddie Zone Red Alert Promotion,” he said.
However, looking at the Econet promotion it still falls short of what other cellphone providers are offering. NetOne is giving away 660 free bonus minutes for every dollar on NetOne to NetOne calls plus an extra dollar, which is the actual dollar purchased, which still allows the subscriber to call across all networks.

This then means NetOne is giving away free talk time of 11 hours every day and should you exceed, then your actual dollar will be deducted till all your credit runs out before the next top up session. Telecel is offering 200 minutes bonus of free voice calls on intra network tariffs.

For every US$1 airtime purchase you make, Telecel is offering the extra bonus minutes yet you can still use your actual dollar to call across networks at the current prevailing rates of approximately four minutes. Econet is only offering a maximum of 10 minutes from their dollar. The same dollar could only go one way, it’s either you convert it to voice bundles then you only get 10 intra minutes to other Econet numbers or leave the US$1 as it is after top up to only get rates of 10 cents, that still only amounts to 10 minutes across networks.

The actual dollar also disappears as soon as you convert it to bundles so either way the best, one could get from the Econet dollar is still 10 minutes which is 650 minutes less of NetOne and 190 minutes lower than Telecel for intra calls.

Econet, however, is ahead of its competitors  since their dollar has 10 minutes at their rates, while others only carry a maximum of four minutes at the average rate of 25 cents per minute across networks.

In my view, the fact that they have been stopped from continuing with this small promotion is also another unfortunate move unfolding on the local technology scene. What was supposed to be the main focal point is that Econet had not started a different promotion but technically have changed their billing rates permanently or at least for as long as they can.

This would then mean that there was now total distortion on the market as all these other players are only running temporary promos which are all meant to die out sooner than later.

Reverting to the 25 cents was impossible as the giant network has already set a precedent. Although this may look like it’s a battle won against Econet, Zimbabweans have been denied the opportunity to see the costs of communication come down.

 The writer is the founding editor of TechnoMag. More on Tech on www.technomag.co.zw or join us on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/technomagzw and enjoy free airtime and quiz games. Email: ictarticles[at]technomag.co.zw