{"id":3197,"date":"2021-03-12T18:16:01","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T18:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/?p=3197"},"modified":"2021-03-12T18:30:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T18:30:52","slug":"weekly-digest-for-12-mar-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/weekly-digest-for-12-mar-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly digest for 12 Mar 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><span class=\"\" style=\"font-family: Helvetica Neue;\"><span class=\"\"><b class=\"\">KEY READING FOR THE WEEK<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>This week\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2021\/03\/11\/tanzania-mulls-over-charging-whatsapp-calls-due-to-falling-revenue-from-international-calls\/\">main story<\/a>\u00a0is from Tanzania, where the government is looking at\u00a0ways to charge consumers for WhatsApp calls in order to recoup the revenue\u00a0operators have lost in international traffic. Data shows that international calls have fallen from\u00a0107.2 million minutes in 2012 to just over\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcra.go.tz\/statistic\/2020%20Quarterly%20Statistics%20Reports\/december\">27 million minutes<\/a>\u00a0in the 4th quarter 2020. The government ascribes the loss in traffic to\u00a0WhatsApp. The regulatory authority, TCRA, installed a Telecommunication\u00a0Traffic Monitoring System and TCRA says that this will enable it to identify\u00a0phones that make and receive calls through WhatsApp. Based on this traffic\u00a0analysis, TCRA says it is investigating additional data charges to recoup\u00a0government tax revenues. Mobile pricing is currently being\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcra.go.tz\/news\/Wasilisho%20Kuhusu%20Gharama%20na%20Tozo%20za%20Vifurushi,%20Promosheni%20na%20Ofa%20Maalum\">revised<\/a>\u00a0and is\u00a0expected to come into affect on the 2nd of April 2021. We\u2019ll keep an eye on\u00a0this story in the upcoming weeks.<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<h6><b class=\"\">OTHER WEEKLY NEWS FROM AROUND AFRICA<\/b><\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commsupdate.com\/articles\/2021\/03\/12\/sa-multi-band-spectrum-auction-delayed-following-telkom-challenge\/?utm_source=CommsUpdate&amp;utm_campaign=89e07ddf14-CommsUpdate+12+March+2021&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_0688983330-89e07ddf14-11676563\">South Africa<\/a>: This story is a follow-up from the previous two weeks: as\u00a0predicted, the auction for High Demand Spectrum (spectrum in the 700MHz,\u00a0800MHz, 2600MHz and 3500MHz bands) has been postponed after the high\u00a0court halted the process. The High Court agreed with Telkom that it was impossible\u00a0to go ahead with the auction since the digital dividend bands (700MHz and 800MHz)\u00a0are still used by analogue TV\u00a0broadcasters.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itweb.co.za\/content\/RgeVDMPYK9RqKJN3\">Nigeria<\/a>: MTN has acquired an additional 10MHz of spectrum the 800MHz band. MTN\u2019s\u00a0active data subscribers has grown by 7.4 million to 36.3 million subscribers in December\u00a02020. MTN ascribes the increase to its growing 4G network, which had previously lagged\u00a0behind Airtel.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2021\/03\/09\/zimbabwe-cellular-firms-hike-charges\/\">Zimbabwe<\/a>: MNOs have increased their prices based on a directive from the regulator,\u00a0POTRAZ. New prices came into affect in early March. However, some analysts are\u00a0concerned that the new prices will be unable to keep up with rampant inflation in\u00a0Zimbabwe.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2021\/03\/12\/malawis-tnm-appoints-new-ceo\/\">Malawi<\/a>: TNM has appointed a new CEO after the resignation of\u00a0Michiel Buitelaar in\u00a0November last year.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commsupdate.com\/articles\/2021\/03\/08\/zain-launches-4g-in-south-sudan\/?utm_source=CommsUpdate&amp;utm_campaign=8c44d78392-CommsUpdate+08+March+2021&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_0688983330-8c44d78392-11676563\">South Sudan<\/a>: Zain has launched 4G services. The rollout of 4G will help Zain to compete\u00a0against\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtn.com\/investors\/financial-reporting\/annual-results\/\">MTN<\/a>, whose active data subscribers grew by 88% in 2020.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2021\/03\/10\/mtn-group-adds-29-million-subscribers-despite-a-challenging-2020\/\">MTN<\/a>:\u00a0MTN added 29 million new subscribers in 2020 and increased its EBITDA margin\u00a0to a phenomenal 42.7%. In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtn.com\/investors\/financial-reporting\/annual-results\/\">Uganda<\/a>, MTN\u2019s active data subscriber base grew by 34.8%\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtn.com\/investors\/financial-reporting\/annual-results\/\">South Africa\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0grew by 11%.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2021\/03\/11\/mtn-south-africa-takes-wholesale-hit-in-roaming-switcheroo\/\">MTN South Africa<\/a>: MTN\u2019s wholesale revenues in South Africa declined by 16% after the\u00a0roaming agreement with Cell C was cancelled. Cell C has signed a roaming agreement with\u00a0Telkom, who, in turn, roams on Vodacom\u2019s network.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week\u2019s\u00a0main story\u00a0is from Tanzania, where the government is looking at\u00a0ways to charge consumers for WhatsApp calls in order to recoup the revenue\u00a0operators have lost in international traffic. Data shows that international calls have fallen from\u00a0107.2 million minutes in 2012 to just over\u00a027 million minutes\u00a0in the 4th quarter 2020. The government ascribes the loss in traffic to\u00a0WhatsApp. The regulatory authority, TCRA, installed a Telecommunication\u00a0Traffic Monitoring System and TCRA says that this will enable it to identify\u00a0phones that make and receive calls through WhatsApp. Based on this traffic\u00a0analysis, TCRA says it is investigating additional data charges [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[116],"tags":[118,117],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3210,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions\/3210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}