Netone cut off by Econet over multi million dollar debt
By Alex Bell
23 August 2012
A multimillion dollar debt owed to wireless network provider Econet, by the
state owned mobile operator NetOne, has resulted in all interconnection
services between the two being cut off.
Econet announced the termination of the service this week in a public
notice, which revealed that as much as US$20 million (excluding interest) is
owed from as far back as 2009. Econet said it has tried engaging the
Zimbabwean telecoms regulator POTRAZ, and the government to intervene, but
with no success.
The company has now said it is “obvious that NetOne was not prepared to
honour its obligations” even though NetOne has been collecting the fees due
to Econet from subscribers as part of the interconnection deal.
Econet has said it’s ready to reconnect, once NetOne “makes a substantial
payment towards the historical debt and commits to meet future obligations
on due date”.
According to Econet, an interconnection agreement is reached on the basis
that there is a mutually agreed cost of terminating calls on each other’s
network.
In Zimbabwe, POTRAZ regulates the cost of terminating domestic and
international calls. These rates are 7 cents per minute for a domestic call
and 20 cents per minute for an international call.
NetOne and Econet have had an agreement for domestic call terminations for
many years. Each of the operators normally charge its customers 23 cents per
minute (including 15% VAT) for a call to each other’s network and is
supposed to pay the other operator 7 cents per minute whilst keeping to
itself 16 cents.
You can read the full statement from Econet here: