{"id":43127,"date":"2013-07-29T10:42:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T08:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=43127"},"modified":"2013-07-29T11:14:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T09:14:28","slug":"vodacoms-450000-sim-disconnections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/43127\/vodacoms-450000-sim-disconnections\/","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom’s 450,000 SIM disconnections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vodacom Group<\/a> says that that the disconnection of 450,000 unregistered SIM cards on its network in\u00a0Tanzania will have no\u00a0material financial impact on its business.<\/p>\n

The move is in compliance with the Electronic and Postal Communications Act (EPOCA) of 2010 which requires all mobile phone numbers in the country to be registered.<\/p>\n

Rival operator\u00a0Airtel Tanzania also switched off 200,000 unregistered lines in the country.<\/p>\n

Vodacom Tanzania boasts 9.66 million customers, with an average revenue per user (ARPU) of R41.<\/p>\n

“The vast majority were very low usage SIMs, so we\u2019re not expecting a material financial impact,” The group told BusinessTech.<\/p>\n

Vodacom Tanzania MD\u00a0Rene Meza<\/a>, said that the move is aimed at “both aligning with the above law and ensuring that our customers\u2019 records are up to date”.<\/p>\n

Vodacom Tanzania has also\u00a0implemented SIM locking of all its cards, with activation of only possible after receipt of suitable registration documents from prospective customers.<\/p>\n

The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) had given all operators a deadline of 1 June to lock new SIM cards and 10 July to block all unregistered customers from their networks.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month,\u00a0Helios Towers Africa (HTA<\/a>) entered into an agreement with\u00a0Vodacom Group<\/a>\u00a0to acquire 100% of the operator\u2019s tower networks in Tanzania\u00a0in a stock and cash deal.<\/p>\n

The deal represents Vodacom Group\u2019s first-ever towers transaction and is valued at \u00a0approximately\u00a0$75 million (R736 million), according to the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

The deal will see the\u00a0transfer of 1,149 existing telecoms towers from Vodacom to HTT and a commitment to an ambitious, short-term rollout to increase in points of service owned by HTT \u2013 which more than doubles its existing presence in Tanzania.<\/p>\n

More on Vodacom<\/h3>\n

Vodacom in mammoth maiden tower deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom: the good and the not so good<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom SA customers flattening out<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom hunts 30,000 SME clients<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom keen on acquisitions, but where?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom Group says that that the disconnection of 450,000 unregistered SIM cards on its network in Tanzania will have no material financial impact on its business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2555,6383,26,27],"class_list":["post-43127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-airtel","tag-epoca","tag-headline","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43127"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43132,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43127\/revisions\/43132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}