08 July 2022

 

 

The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has introduced a new traffic monitoring and revenue assurance system to restrict financial leakages from telecommunications services.

This move will help enable the regulator to combat network fraud, enforce billing integrity and revenue assurance and deal with disputes over national interconnections.

The system gives POTRAZ the ability to measure and calculate various statistics on national and international telecommunications traffic.

“It should be emphasised at this point that the telecommunications traffic monitoring and revenue assurance system does not have the capability to monitor content and conversations,” said Jenfan Muswere, minister of ICT, post and courier services. “The system is limited to interacting with the signalling segment of the network and does not have access to traffic channels.”

The new system replaces the previous self-declaration regime for mobile network operators. According to POTRAZ, the information and declarations previously provided by operators could be inaccurate, damaging revenues. This initiative of the regulator is part of the government’s objective to develop the telecommunications sector, which “is one of the main pillars for stimulating economic growth” and development to achieve Vision 2030.

“This commissioning facilitates the implementation of a system based on state-of-the-art technology that will effectively monitor telecommunications traffic and collect accurate data in real time,” added Gift Machengete, chief executive officer, POTRAZ. “This will give the authority better visibility of market dynamics, which is essential for effective, efficient and forward-looking regulation.”