19 July 2019

Government officials in Zimbabwe are mulling over the introduction of data rollover to cut costs for customers who are struggling with declining disposable income.

Mobile data currently costs about one US cent per megabyte per second in the country, according to the country’s ICT Ministry. However, consumers believe the cost is too high, especially after inflation hit 75% in April.

“I personally wouldn’t see any problem on data rollover,” said Zimbabwe’s ICT minister, Kazembe Kazembe. “We need to do our best to protect consumers.”

The Ministry and the industry regulator, the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) have successfully pushed for infrastructure sharing as another way of keeping telecom costs down.

Econet and state-owned NetOne recently signed such an agreement.