Maputo — A group of university students have submitted a letter to the Mozambican National Communications Institute (INCM), the regulatory body for telecommunications, contesting the new tariffs for voice, data and SMS services, which they claim have been increased by around 150%.
This is a startling claim, since the INCM says it has reduced tariffs, not increased them.
According to the general coordinator of the Association of Mozambican Final Year University Students (AEFUM), Nélio Zunguza, who was speaking to reporters on Wednesday, in Maputo, minutes after the document was handed over to the INCM, the new tariffs directly affect students at all levels, from elementary to higher education.
"As the voice of the students, we feel the need to put forward our position, demanding a review of the new data tariffs recently published by the INCM', he said.
However, the INCM, claims that the tariff for voice calls has dropped from six meticais (about nine US cents) per minute to five meticais per minute. The average price of the data service fell from 2.30 to 1.08 meticais per megabyte. Regarding the average price of the national SMS service, the INCM claims this has fallen from 1.70 to 1.1 meticais per text message.
But users insist that, in reality, the tariffs have increased. According to the independent daily "O Pais', a top-up of 1,000 Meticais (about 16 US dollars, at the current exchange rate) used to allow unlimited calls and text messages, as well as about 27 gigabytes of internet usage for 30 days. The same amount is now only enough for 800 minutes of calls, just 5.7 gigabytes and 500 SMS during the same one-month period.
With these new tariffs, Zunguza believes that research is under threat in Mozambique and foresees a reversal of previous advances in terms of digitalization, technological progress and research in the country.
"The universities have three fundamental pillars: teaching, research and extension. We had challenges acquiring top-ups at the previous prices, now the situation has become more complicated, especially for parents and carers', he said.
According to Zunguza, Mozambique is one of the four countries in Africa with the most expensive internet, "jeopardizing the Sustainable Development Goals.'
He also said that the increase in tariffs goes against the commitment made by the signatory countries to make the internet accessible to the entire population, so that the world can become "a global village.'
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He promised to take further action, if the INCM ignores the students' letter.
When he announced the new tariffs, the INCM chairperson, Tuaha Mote, declared "the mission of the INCM, as the telecommunications regulator, is to guarantee the availability of infrastructures, good quality services, a competitive environment and prices that are accessible to consumers, seeking to ensure the stability and sustainability of the market'.
He guaranteed that prices would come down, but consumers now complain that the opposite has happened.
In its latest claims, the INCM says that the only significant change is that it has prevented operators from offering unlimited internet access and unlimited numbers of phone calls, in order to end "unfair competition'.
The INCM's initial announcement was deceptive, since nobody buys telecommunications services one phone call or one megabyte at a time. There are a bewildering variety of packages and bonuses offered by the three mobile phone companies (T-Mcel, Vodacom and Movitel) and by the various internet service providers.
Nobody in the Mozambican media has yet worked out whether the average price of these packages has risen or fallen.
One of the main service providers, TV-Cabo (Cable TV), in March increased its prices for its combined phone and internet services by about four per cent. Its justification was that it was just passing on to the consumers the extra prices it is paying its providers for television content.
The INCM said nothing about this price rise. Indeed, TV-Cabo has regularly increased its prices without so much as a whisper from the regulator.
