The Sunday News
Noble Ncube, Business Reporter
THE Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe has approved the country’s first ever Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Viva Mobile to operate and offer cheap data and online television services.
Viva Mobile founder and chief executive officer, Mr Dzidzai Chidumba said the local telecoms industry regulator has finally given the company the greenlight to start operating and will be going live in August. He said so far they have used $10 000 leading up to the approval by Potraz and would be live to major urban centres.
“So far we have used about $10 000 excluding the pre-launch marketing and inventory to come. Viva Mobile will only be available in major urban areas for now. We are working on expanding to rural areas.
“It is a good time for us to launch. Most people are now looking for value for their money. We believe our pricing is affordable especially for the demographic we are targeting. In our opinion, $9,99 for 100 minutes and 3GB Data will be hard to beat,” he said.
Viva Mobile already runs a service called UhuruTV, a video on demand (VOD) service, which has over 40 international channels.
As a result its subscribers will be able to access premium live, linear and catch-up TV on their mobile devices. The service is set at $9,99 a month. Mr Chidumba said there were more services to be launched it the future.
He said the company wants to introduce the concept of Wild Fruit prepaid voice and data plans.
“Pay $9,99 per month and get 100 minutes talk time, unlimited sms (text messages) and 3GB data. Viva mobile also comes with a mobile Wi-Fi plan where there are small, medium and large combos costing $2,99 for 3GB, $7,99 for 10Gb and $24,99 for 50GB respectively. Comparatively Viva Mobile will be offering cheapest combos from voice, data and text.”
“We certainly have more products to offer in the future, we are not a Telco. We are a technology company first. You can look forward to more disruptive and fun services in the future just like UhuruTV.
“Viva Mobile is planning African domination and is currently working on two other pilot countries that is in South Africa and Kenya. We are on course to launch our services in South Africa in quarter four of 2017 then followed by Kenya,” he said.
A MVNO is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers.
It makes use of another company’s existing network infrastructure. It has its own rates and calling plan features, its own billing system, and its own customer service department.
Potraz worked on a converged licensing framework that will give room to operators that have specific services like infrastructure management as well as applications and content deployment via shared infrastructure arrangements. As an MVNO Viva Mobile will be riding on existing telecoms infrastructure set up by another operator. Chidumba said they are entering into this arrangement with Africom.
The launch of Viva Mobile will put the number of Video On Demand (VOD) service providers to four.
Other VOD providers are Econet Wireless, with its Kwesé TV, Netflix which recently signed with Liquid Telecom and they are waiting to launch ipidiTV.
According to African Telecoms News MVNO survey the market segment for greatest potential in Africa is the youth with 77,45 percent share.
Mr Chidumba said all their services will be prepaid with a deliberate focus on data, but aimed at the 14 to 30 age bracket.
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