Cellphone tariff cuts: too little too late?

When mobile phones first came to Botswana, in the late 1990s, they were expensive and exclusive. Only a few people could afford them. It was a far cry from what obtains today, where up to 2.8 million mobile phones are estimated to be use. The latest data from the Botswana Telecommunication Authority (BTA) puts the number of active Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards and by extension the number of cellphones at close to 2.8 million.

More than a mere status symbol, cellphones have become a necessity nowadays with ownership cutting across the age groups. From lower primary school children to octogenarians, everybody seems to have a cellphone.  BTA recently announced that Public Telecommunications Operators (PTO) a reduction in tariffs and this should make users happy. However, some customers have not noticed or the cut was too little to make a difference.