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Zimbabwe mobile phone operator hikes rates
Lizwe Sebatha, ZimOnline
December 01, 2007

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2398

BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe's biggest mobile phone operator, Econet Wireless, says it has hiked tariffs by over 450 percent in an attempt to shield itself from rampant inflation estimated at around 14 000 percent.

In an interview with ZimOnline earlier this week, Econet Wireless chief executive officer, Douglas Mboweni, said they had raised rates from Z$7 500 to $43 000 a minute for local calls and from $15 000 to $89 000 for international calls.

Mboweni said sub-economic rates charged by the company had led to a deterioration of communication services offered by the mobile firm and stifled the company's expansion projects.

"We are failing to manage infrastructure because revenue has become too low due to low tariffs against high inflation and other operational costs.

"Construction of sites and base stations to increase subscriber base was affected by the low tariffs and where construction was taking place, it was at a slower pace due to reduced revenue," said Mboweni.

Mboweni said with the new rates, Econet will go ahead with work that began earlier this year to add capacity to its network and increase its subscriber base from the current 800 000 to 1.2 million by February 2008.

A severe electricity shortage in Zimbabwe has hit hard mobile phone operations in the country with calls failing to go through between networks.

The state-controlled Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has over the past few months been switching off large sections of the country at any given times in a bid to save the little power that is available in the country.

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