(Agence Ecofin) – Over the past decade, the Tanzanian government has seen one of its main sources of telecom revenue decline. Finding a solution to remedy it would allow him to protect himself from unpleasant surprises.
To compensate for the financial losses induced by the drop in international telecom voice traffic caused by the massive adoption of the Over-The-Top (OTT) WhatsApp application, the government of Tanzania is currently considering various solutions, including the introduction new data rates. The Minister of Information and Communication Technologies, Faustine Ndugulile (photo), revealed it on Wednesday March 10 in an interview with mwananchi.co.tz.
Acknowledging that banning WhatsApp calls is not a viable option, Emmanuel Manase, the director of sector issues at the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), said a price adjustment could instead help. the State to stabilize its revenues. He argued that the first step will first be to identify the phones that make and receive calls through the OTTs. Through their call data, the regulator will be able to estimate the total value of calls made and received in order to determine by how much to adjust the price of the data.
Over the years, OTTs have been preferred by consumers of telecom services in view of the affordable costs they offer. As a result, the number of international mobile calls increased from 107.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 27.27 million in the last quarter of 2020, according to the TCRA. That is to say a decline of 81.09% in ten years.
By finding an alternative to falling revenues in the international calls segment, the Tanzanian government wants to preserve all the resources through which it plans to finance the post-Covid-19 economic recovery.
Muriel edjo
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07/16/2019 – Uganda: the tax on social networks generated only 17.4% of the annual sum expected in 2018
02/11/2018 – Kenya is considering regulating Over-The-Top applications such as WhatsApp and Skype
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