Greydot Telecoms Aims To Compete With Large Telecommunications Companies Through Its Cheaper Rates
Greydot Telecoms Aims To Compete With Large Telecommunications Companies Through Its Cheaper Rates. While all eyes are on large mobile network providers to reduce their charges, an African telecommunications company is slowly encroaching on the space with its innovation of cheap calls and finance technology solutions.
Greydot Telecoms’ secret to being the cheapest telecommunications provider lies in the fact that its whole business is internet-based, with no terrestrial technology such as towers which other mobile network providers use. The Botswana-based company has 700 000 users in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We’ve achieved this number without aggressive marketing, only word of mouth,” Greydot chairperson Chris Phaladze told News24, adding that “soon we will be expanding to Gabon.”
The company’s CEO is Zimbabwe-based Siqokoqela Mphoko, the son of former Zimbabwean vice-president Phelekezela Mphoko also told News24 that, “We are cheaper because our technology sits on the cloud and we don’t have the overhead costs that MTN has such as generators, fibres and office staff.”
According to News24, Greydot charges 35 cents per minute for calls to any number within South Africa, enabled by its local interconnection with Telkom and Liquid Telecom. For international calls, Greydot to Greydot connection is also charged at 35 cents per minute irrespective of where the recipient is on the globe. The same rate applies to calls to any number in the 170 countries at which Greydot has interconnection with Indian telecommunications provider Tata Communications. These 170 countries are the most industrialised economies of the world, where most Africans live in diaspora.
Major mobile network providers in South Africa such as Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Cell C have been in trouble with the Competition Commission for their exorbitant charges, particularly for data. News24 also stated that, in response to this, last year Vodacom decided to reduce its 30-day 1GB data bundle by 14% to R85, while bundles between 3GB and 20GB remained unchanged. MTN and Telkom charge R99 for 1GB data, while Cell C charges R95. The cheapest is Rain, which costs R50.
