Telecom ministry in Zimbabwe mulls obligating network sharing

Zimbabwe’s government is mulling a change to the telecom regulations that would require the mobile network operators to share their network infrastructure.

The permanent secretary in the ministry of transport and infrastructure development, Munesu Munodawafa told local media that the proposed legislation would help reduce costs and ultimately lead to low tariffs.

He suggested that there is duplication of investment in some areas, which in turn leaves other areas under invested.

"In future, we should have a policy that encourages sharing of networks and we believe that it would be cheaper in the long run for us to have shared services and base stations," Munodawafa said.

The biggest beneficiary of the change would be the struggling state-owned telco, NetOne, which would be able to share the infrastructure of the larger private network operators, Econet and Telecel.