Econet Wireless has started refunding subscribers who lost airtime owing to faulty billing, which saw several subscribers complain that airtime was disappearing from their accounts.

This had forced the state telecom regulator, Potraz to ask Econet to address this, informed telecom industry sources in Zimbabwe said this week.

It has been reported that ICT minister Supa Mandiwanzira has previously said the government was concerned by such complaints.

Zimbabwe also wants mobile companies to lower internet rariffs and has already said voice tariffs should be reduced further at the beginning of next year.

ITWeb Africa has been told that Econet is under scrutiny from the regulator over its billing system.

The company has however moved in to address this, saying subscribers will be refunded for the airtime credit that disappeared from their accounts.

"You have been awarded free airtime as an apology for the inconvenience you suffered as a result of challenges with our billing system from 7 to 13 June," Econet said in a texted message to subscribers this week.

Potraz recently invited bids from companies to help it set up a monitoring system of telecoms traffic in Zimbabwe. The system will also seek to assure service quality also gauge the amount of telecom traffic in the country.

"The regulator is seized with the issue because complaints have been raised over incorrect billing," said a government official this week.

Meanwhile, Econet Wireless, which raised its social media data bundles by as much as 100% for faster speeds and downloads, is running a data tariff reduction promotion.

The daily data bundle promotion has seen tariffs for data cut to $1 for 250MB. Normal data tariffs for Econet Wireless cost $1 for 10 megabytes.