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Mozambique: Complaints filed on telecom regulator’s tariff changes, ban on unlimited data and voice packages
6:58 CAT | 08 May 2024
File photo: AIM
Changes to telecommunications services in Mozambique, including the end of unlimited packages, are giving rise to complaints from customers, the executive director of the consumer protection association ‘ProConsumer’ told Lusa today.
“Yes, there have been complaints, taking into account that there has been an increase in telecommunications prices, reflecting negatively on the consumer’s financial situation,” Alexandre Bacião said regarding the new packages applied since Saturday, including the withdrawal of unlimited data and voice services by the three mobile telecommunications operators, following intervention by the National Communications Institute of Mozambique (INCM).
Without specifying numbers, Bacião said that the consumer protection institution has been receiving complaints since Saturday about the alleged increase in package prices, especially mobile data, causing “great embarrassment to the consumer”.
“The regulator communicated that the price would drop, but that’s not what’s happening. He says he established benchmarks, but in practice that’s not what we’re seeing,” Bacião said, adding that the situation is “harming many”, especially students who use data services in the learning process.
“It is necessary to understand that nowadays mobile telephone services are not a luxury, but a necessity for communication, an essential service for the consumer,” Bacião notes.
Faced with the end of unlimited packages, the executive director of ProConsumer accused the regulator of failing to provide information, “seriously violating consumer rights”.
“Information for the consumer has always been deficient, but it was the most glaring thing about this process,” he stressed.
Bacião also pointed out that the regulator made decisions about the functioning of the market “without carrying out due public consultation”.
The chairman t of INCM, Mozambique’s communications regulator, said on Tuesday that he has instructed telecommunications operators to withdraw unlimited data and voice packages to avoid “market collapse” and “unfair competition”.
“The prices [of telephone communications] are no longer the same. We banned the implementation of unlimited packages, which were damaging the economy. The 30-day packages continue, but consumers can’t talk unlimitedly to the point where it costs them zero,” said chairman of the board of the National Communications Institute of Mozambique (INCM), Tuaha Mote, in an interview with private television ST.
Mote said that the regulator eliminated unlimited data and voice service packages as a measure to avoid “unfair competition” between operators, and to allow a greater opening of the investment market in the sector.
The INCM announced last Thursday that telecommunications services would become cheaper on average from Saturday (04-05), with the entry into force of tariffs in which operators adjust the minimum values.
According to Mote, the average price of voice service in Mozambique would drop from six meticais (€0.08) per minute to five meticais (€0.05), while the average price of data service would drop from 2.30 meticais (€0.03) per megabyte to 1.08 meticais (€0.02).
The average price of the SMS messaging service would drop from 1.70 meticais (€0.24 per SMS, to 1.10 meticais (€0.01).
The update of average prices comes after the INCM published, on February 19 of this year, a resolution establishing new minimum tariffs in the telecommunications sector, particularly for national calls inside and outside the network, data services and messaging services.
Source: Lusa
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