LOCAL media houses’ quest to innovate and shore up revenues through digital news is in jeopardy after mobile service provider Econet Wireless made telling changes to the digital news platform, effectively pulling the plug on the service.
BY STAFF REPORTER
Major media houses in the country which were signed onto the SMS news platform had come to rely on the service as a lucrative source of revenue until last month when Econet altered the subscription method to the package.
The SMS news service is a tripartite arrangement between Econet, media houses and Chinese company ZTE which plays an intermediary role as the provider of critical technology to publish the news. The three entities shared revenue from subscribers whose accounts were directly debited when they signed on.
The news service was part of Econet’s Value-Added Services (VAS) bouquet which the network operator last month decided to alter allegedly following complaints from the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) that there were illegal deductions to customer accounts.
According to online technology news site, TechZim, Econet has introduced its own bouquet of US$-based mobile news.
“We are not sure when the service was launched, but as early as last week we began seeing the menu available on US$ code *717#. The application offers local and international, finance, general and sports and soccer news at 75c per month, 25c per week and 5c daily deducting credit from the content account,” TechZim on their website said.
Zimpapers reported in its interim results that its mobile news platform had the potential to rake in $300 000 monthly from roughly 300 000 subscribers. Alpha Media Holdings and Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe have a similar application running on the Econet platform.
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TechZim, however, said with the introduction of the content account, Econet virtually pulled the plug on VAS that depended on deducting credit from the subscriber’s airtime, as long as the account was sufficiently funded and as a result of this setback, VAS providers have had to fork out varying sums to invest in re-educating a market they had already bagged and banked.
Commenting on the issue, Information Communication Technology and Courier Services minister Supa Mandiwanzira said the problem of Econet and the media houses was a breach in contractual agreement and they should seek recourse.
“If a contract has been breached they have to seek for recourse, but this is a specific matter. I can’t comment since it’s not a policy issue, I would advise the people to seek for recourse since it’s a contractual agreement,” Mandiwanzira said.
However, efforts to get a comment from Econet were fruitless as the emailed questions had not been responded to at the time of going to print last night. Potraz last month reportedly threatened to disconnect Econet Wireless VAS due to auto registrations, multiple billing, VAS spamming and disappearing balances.
VAS is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-core services, or in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions.
Econet said the logic was to ensure that customers controlled their spending.
