Zimbabweans will now pay more to make calls and use the internet after the telecoms regulator authorised operators to peg their tariffs at the official exchange rate and in United State dollars.<\/p>\n
In a notice to operators on Wednesday, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) said operators may now use dual pricing on their tariffs.<\/p>\n
This is in line with exchange rate rules announced at the end of March and effected by Statutory Instrument 185 issued Friday.<\/p>\n
To determine the level of US$ tariffs, companies have been directed to convert the current tariffs by 25, which was the exchange rate that applied in March, when tariffs were last increased.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to facilitate dual pricing under the new exchange rate regime, the authority hereby advises all licensed postal and telecommunication operators that the implementation of the dual pricing system shall entail converting the current Zimdollar tariffs to US$-denominated tariffs at an exchange rate of US$1:$25 to arrive at the base US$ denominated tariffs,\u201d Potraz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US$ denominated base tariffs will then be converted at the ruling exchange rate as determined by the auction system, to arrive at Zimdollar-denominated tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exchange rate from the last auction is 1:72,1470.<\/p>\n
For users on Econet, the country\u2019s largest mobile phone operator, this means a call will now cost just over $4 per minute from $1,50.<\/p>\n
An Econet-to-Econet call will cost US$0,06 per minute.<\/p>\n
TelOne, the fixed line operator, now charges just under US4 cents per minute and $2,71 per minute for a call to a landline.<\/p>\n
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\nThat\u2019s up from $0,94. A call from landline to mobile is now just under US$0,06 and $4,16 per minute.<\/p>\n
TelOne data prices are also up.<\/p>\n
Potraz says the tariffs will rise depending on the exchange rate movements, but does not give a range.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Zimdollar-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,\u201d Potraz
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe\u2019s telecoms companies have been seeking tariff hikes to cover rising operating costs.<\/p>\n
While operators have been charging tariffs in the local currency, the bulk of their costs are in US dollars.<\/p>\n
At the peak of the power crisis in 2019, Econet warned that it was \u201cincreasingly becoming untenable and uneconomical for it to guarantee a reasonable grade of service and optimal network uptime under the current conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabweans will now pay more to make calls and use the internet after the telecoms regulator authorised operators to peg their tariffs at the official exchange rate and in United State dollars. In a notice to operators on Wednesday, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) said operators may now use dual pricing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":25778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[1410,684],"class_list":{"0":"post-25777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-policy","9":"tag-portaz","10":"tag-telone"},"yoast_head":"\n