20 Feb 2020

Greydot Telecoms, a new company to be launched today, aims at filling a gap in the communications and mobile finance through its services; Greydot Mobile and Greydot cash.

Speaking in an interview, Mr Christian Phaladze of Greydot said the company offered the lowest call rate of 35 thebe per minute or P35 for 100 minutes even for international calls to South Africa and another 170+ countries. 

Customers could also send SMS text messages for the same rate to any GSM network in Botswana and South Africa.

He said they offered such affordable rates because they did not offer GSM services like existing providers, but instead made use of data to transport the voice call. 

He sited other examples such as Jio in India where data calling disrupted the marketing to such an extent that traditional operators were contemplating their futures.

Existing service providers, in Botswana as elsewhere, had high infrastructure costs on outdated technology. 

New operators were excluded to a great extend and therefore the retail price to consumers remained unreasonably high.

Mr Phaladze said, through their hybrid telecommunications system, they did not have to erect towers or lay cables and did not issue SIM cards. 

Customers could use any data calling device that supported SIP  such as desktop phones, private branch exchanges (PBXs) or Greydot’s free mobile application for android smart phones.

Through Greydot, there would be no boundaries, meaning the call rates will be the same anywhere in the world, hence also eliminating roaming charges while the system used a prepaid, per second billing engine.

Greydot cash would go further than the current money transfer services available in the market. 

At its core was a revolutionary mobile wallet that might contain multiple containers of differing commodities. 

Think of Greydot Cash as if it’s a real wallet holding multiple bank cards compared to other mobile money platforms that assumed one had one wallet with one bank card.

Mr Phaladze said this open architecture created endless possibilities.

One mobile wallet that could hold virtual cash, airtime or anything that could be digitally tokenised meant Greydot Cash might become the standard platform for many third-party integrators and/or service providers, each managing and transacting in their own digital tokens but using the same base platform.

Through the mobile money services, customers were able to transact using QR-Codes, digital images that contained clients account information or transfer their digital money between containers, instantly from any device connected to the Internet.

Funding Greydot happens via a cash deposit at an FNB ATM, over the counter or through a person-to-person distribution network.

Accessing the service does not require physical visits or filling of forms and signing-up is done instantly through a web site: www.greydot.co.bw. Ends