Staff Writer
Mobile operators have increased price of data across the board for none bundled stuff after Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) raised the threshold on tariffs.
Econet Wireless announced that it would increase the tariffs beginning on 15 July 2022 while NetOne, TelOne, Telecel and Liquid are likely to follow suit.
This is meant to cushion operators against the inflationary environment pertaining in the country as the Zimbabwe dollar weakens against US dollar.
The latest increase could be followed by another increase of traffic in August according to reports.
The last time POTRAZ approved changes to the headline tariffs (actual tariffs not bundles) was in August 2020 just after the introduction of the forex auction by the RBZ.
The official exchange rate between the USD and the Zim Dollar was 1:85 and today the official interbank rate is 1:394.
In August 2020 the parallel exchange rate was 1:100 and today the parallel rate was 1:780
In other words the value of the Zimbabwean dollar is now 4.63 times weaker according to the officials and 7.8 times weaker according to the streets since the last tariff adjustment.
So, if the telecom operators aimed to get the same value they got from their services in August 2020 they should have been allowed to increase their prices by 5 times or 8 times depending on which market reflects real value.
However, the latest increases have rattled customers as nowadays business is conducted online, which means more data consumption.
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