BUSINESS WRITER
Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has granted Dolphin Telecoms a mobile virtual network operating licence, paving the way for a fourth mobile service operator in the country.
Dolpin’s managing director, Nyasha Charumbira, said the company has partnered with one of the three mobile networks to deploy Zimbabwe’s first virtual network, with the service targeting the market with a suite of affordable mobile services.
“We have already secured an agreement with one mobile network operator, and our model aims to create a new layer of efficiency in the virtualisation space. Infrastructure sharing has been underutilised because of a failure to establish win-win models, but this is a problem we believe we have solved,as evidenced by the agreement we have secured,” Charumbira said.
Mobile virtual network operators are telecommunication companies that do not erect base stations but utilise excess capacity from existing network operators.
Dolphin’s service will be available across a large coverage area built on the partner’s extensive backbone. The commercial launch is planned for later this year.
Pressed on the launch timeline, Charumbira was noncommittal.
“We are at an advanced stage of implementing our core network systems. We are concluding a few things and are certainly very close to opening our doors,” he said.
With an investment of US$15m, the new network will allow users to create highly customisable service bundles to suit their needs.
“We set out to build a highly effective customer service interface that brings cellular services in Zimbabwe to a new level—and we are happy to have accomplished this,” Charumbira said.
“This network builds on a robust existing infrastructure to answer a critical problem, which is at the service layer, and our ambition, which is driven by technology, is to launch with best-in-class user experience and customer services in Zimbabwe.
“We have tightened the software layer to ensure that the issues that people are frustrated with, regarding failure to top up; top ups not being recognised; having to switch network settings for data to activate; and other common problems clogging customer service lines are resolved within the software later.”
Out of nearly 6m smartphone users in Zimbabwe, Charumbira said about 2.5m are actively seeking custom data and calling packages, with some using multiple devices.
“You have some users with a phone for WhatsApp and another one for phone calls. What they are saying is that we want the ability to customise our usage in a very tight way. So our system will be ground-breaking in that regard and allow a single line to deliver the level of calling credit and data for particular services as required,” Charumbira said.
Dolphin’s topman said improving access to voice, SMS, and data services at economic rates was critical to driving entrepreneurial growth and the company aims to develop partnerships with digital service providers to ride on its network.
The company is also targeting the lucrative financial services market.
“We are going to move rapidly into financial services with a creative peer-to-peer financial system that will resolve many of the challenges that limit the usefulness of existing products,” Charumbira said, refusing to be drawn into details.
