Mobile tariffs going up, operators now charge based on interbank rate. Telecel first

The telecoms regulator, The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has approved telecom operators to base their pricing on the interbank rate.

This is to fulfill the recently published statute from government which says:

“Any person who provides goods or services in Zimbabwe
shall display, quote or offer the price for such goods or services in
both Zimbabwe dollar and foreign currency at the ruling exchange rate.”

SI 185/2020

In a report by NewzWire, mobile telecoms were on Wednesday last week given the green light by POTRAZ to do just that.

“In order to facilitate dual pricing under the new exchange rate regime, the authority hereby advises all licences postal and telecommunication operators that the implementation of the dual pricing system shall entail converting the current ZWL tariffs to USD denominated tariffs at an exchange rate of USD1:ZWL25 to arrive at the base USD denominated tariffs,”

POTRAZ

Prices after this conversion will then be priced at the prevailing Forex Exchange Rate. On Saturday TelOne released their new price structure which included prices in US$. That isn’t only for internet prices, but included US$ prices for voice calls.

Telecel first

As far as we have seen, Telecel is the first mobile network operator to notify subscribers of the change. Today Telecel has released this:

Service Type	US$ Tariff	Floating rate (ZWL$72.14)	Floating rate (ZWL$72.14)
Telecel to Telecel	0.059	4.254/min	0.071/sec
Telecel to other networks	0.057	4.109/min	0.068/sec
Data (MB)	0.012	0.836	–
SMS	0.015	1.091	–
USSD	0.015	1.091	–

Will we be getting more frequent price readjustments for local currency prices ?

According to the same article by NewzWire POTRAZ said the following:

“The ZWL denominated tariffs shall be reviewed from time to time in line with the auction determined exchange rate movements, as and when necessary, depending on the magnitude of the movements,”

POTRAZ

There seem to be no outlined intervals for price restructuring with relation to the rate week on week. What is clear is that if the value of the local currency significantly reduces on the official market, we will see tariffs going up. What if the local currency firms up significantly? We’ll see when if that bridge comes into view….