Subscribers of the mobile company Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM) have over the past few weeks been subjected to poorer internet services than already on offer by the Malawian mobile services provider. Despite calls from government and MACRA to Telco’s and ISP’s operating in the country, nothing much seems to be improving in the mobile services sector in regards to lower voice or data rates for consumers.
Earlier this week, TNM was also in the news with allegations of being too greedy in negotiating a deal with its sister company, National Bank of Malawi (NBM) both subsidiaries of Press Corporation. The sour deal was over the use of National Bank’s Mo626 mobile banking service with TNM allegedly asking for K30 per session for mobile banking transactions. As of 9 June 2015, NBM started airing radio adverts that the Mo626 service will only be available on TNM’s biggest rival, Airtel Malawi. TNM Public Relations and Sponsorship Manager Limbani Nsapato could not be reached for comment.
While TNM has been focusing its marketing energy to increase and maximise its data ARPU (average revenue per user) via the TNM Smart Data Campaign, it is surprising how to see how little it seems to care with providing higher standard data services to its subscribers even for the sake of its own bottom line. While it may be the case that voice revenues are higher than internet data revenues, this trend seems to be reversing globally especially among the young demographic whose habits are considerably different from older generations of mobile phone users.
From an interview with university students from the NACIT college, it seems many are of the view that TNM lines are for calling and SMS while Airtel and Access numbers best for browsing the internet and downloading their favourite music and videos. Aulphan Kumwenda, a student at the college said, “normally when I’m online, I’m chatting on Whatsapp, Facebook, watching videos on YouTube or downloading mp3 music from malawi-music.com but TNM is not the best at that…it seems cheaper but the experience is horrible for a regular internet user like me. Maybe the new Chinese phone company will make them jack up!”
In March, TNM was forced to postpone its intended 14 percent tariff hike amid complaints from consumers. TNM has maintained that the cost of utilities, goods and services had significantly increased in Malawi in the past year and thus eroded the returns for telecommunication operators, thus justifying another rate increase.
In his letter to TNM and MACRA, CAMA executive director John Kapito said, “The increase is unethical and immoral considering the fact that consumers continue complaining about the poor services that your network provides.” This is all happening in the backdrop of a recent online BBC story that revealed that Malawi has one of the most expensive mobile phone services in the world.
