- Telecoms companies in Zimbabwe could now be fined up to $5,000 for delivering poor service under new regulations.
- This development is included in Statutory Instrument 154 of 2024, which revises the Postal and Telecommunications (Quality of Service) Regulations.
- The telcos in the country are struggling to meet quality standards as competition tends to intensify with the launch of Starlink.
The revised regulations aim to protect users dealing with unreliable services, including preventing dropped calls, ensuring fast Internet, and timely message delivery with the Postal and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) enforcing the fines.
With the new rules, telcos that fail to meet quality of service standards over three months — measured by indicators such as call drop rate, call setup success rate, cell availability, data service access success rate, and data services drop rate — could face fines of up to $200 per cell tower that falls short. The same fine applies if text messages are delayed or fail to reach their destination.
Meanwhile, network outages lasting more than three hours will incur fines of $5,000, with an additional $5,000 for each extra hour of downtime. Also, failure to meet standards for interconnection links can result in a fine of up to $5,000 per instance, while not submitting network performance data will incur a fine of up to $5,000 per month.
The government has set targets for telcos to ensure quality service. The Data Service Access Success Rate (DSASR) is set at a minimum of 95%, and the Data Service Drop Rate (DSDR) must not surpass 2%.
While this development benefits users, it may pose a challenge to telcos, potentially resulting in difficulties meeting the new standards.
For instance, Zimbabwe has been struggling with electricity shortage, leading mobile operators to rely on diesel and other alternatives to keep cell towers running. Also, telcos in the country, including Econet, NetOne, and Telecel, have recorded losses in recent times. In the 2024 annual report of Econet, it reported a net loss of $73 million for the year ending in February 2024.
In July 2024, per a report, the government lost at least $200 million through NetOne, a state-owned technology company, in just 2 years. Meanwhile, in May 2023, Telecel, another state-owned mobile provider, was placed under corporate rescue to avoid its liquidation.
In March 2023, the telcos petitioned the government to allow them to peg their tariffs in US dollars instead of the local Zimbabwe dollar to protect them from hyperinflation despite a prior 50% price increase approved by the regulator, POTRAZ.
