www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Derek Lakudzala, interim President, Information Communication Association of Malawi (ICTAM) has reportedly observed that the Malawian mobile tariffs are too high in comparison to other nations in the region.
Along with the high mobile tariffs the cost for infrastructure such as towers which is not shared among operators and therefore a lot of unnecessary cost are bearded by the subscribers.
There is no denying that phone tariffs are very high in Malawi but purely pushing the blame entirely on the operators is not correct either,” he said.
In order to bring down the tariffs, MACRA will have to raise competition across the nation by calling for more mobile operators.
We are sure that consumers would be the best ultimate beneficiaries from the increased number of players on the market,” said MACRA Acting Director General Mike Kuntiya, who also reckons innovation and quality would also improve.
Whereas, Zain MD Fayaz King, is of other idea, that lowered taxes and luring mobile subscribers to the existing mobile operators will lead to lowered mobile tariffs.
Zain which at present has 1.5 million subscribers on an infrastructure can accommodate 5 million subscribers. So Zain in order to enjoy economies of scale will have to attract another million subscribers so that the infrastructure is fully used.