Yesterday, Africom, an Internet Access Provider in Zimbabwe, had a supplement in one of the major weekly papers called Fingaz. Among the announcements in the paper, was an article with the title “Africom, MTN deliver African dream” that no doubt caught our attention. Keen to know what this new partnership is about, we read the details, this:
HAVING a “borderless” Africa is a dream that many feel is not achievable. Through partnership, we believe we can help bring Africa closer. That is why we are happy to announce that Africom is partnering with MTN to connect Zimbabwe to the rest of Africa and the world.
Africom and MTN have come together to give local subscribers the opportunity to interact with the global market. This will be achieved through delivering leading-edge technology that guarantees exceptional quality of service as well as extremely dynamic and progressive communication solutions.
The internet is often described as an engine of globalisation that knocks down borders and imposes market competitiveness on every nation. As internet becomes integrated into the practices of businesses, governments, and social movements, the world becomes smaller, and the partnership between Africom and MTN would help keep Africa at par with global trends and developments, bringing Africa a step closer to realizing its boundless potential.
An operator for voice and data enterprise solutions in Zimbabwe and beyond, Africom is a well-known brand in this market; making a synergistic partnership with MTN.
MTN is one of the Africa’s largest telecommunication companies. For over two decades, MTN has played a pivotal role in providing quality voice, mobile, connectivity, Internet access, managed services and software solutions to the continent.
We have no idea what the above means. Really. Word for word we copied it so you readers would help us understand. What exactly is the partnership with MTN? What are they going to be doing together? We got in touch with Africom earlier today to have them explain it but we haven’t received a response yet.
If you understand it (or you happen to work at Africom), please help by explaining it in the comments below.
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23 comments
Here is my guess: MTN has been interested in Zimbabwe for quite a while. At on time, they were close to clinching a deal with NETONE which fell off. They even showed interest by exhibiting at ZITF in 2010. It would not be surprising if they have found a cheaper door into Zimbabwe…. Just a guess
Too vague.It could mean absolutely anything
almost “diplomat” language, excelling in saying absolutely nothing and still use quite a few of the “correct” words and expressions. Rubbish I call it until I see something tangible
In my fantasy they plan on providing a bigger CDMA network and sell devices with a 24 month contract and offer an outstanding internet service unmatched by any othrer wireless carrier…
wasted money and words
its called boarderless network! The only problem l can think of is not technological, it is the way MTN is trying to gain entrance into Zimbabwe market. All things equal l dont think Africom have enough money needed for initial investment to make this idea work and clearly Africom is a major benefiter should the project take off.
Bt its clear that government is going to be involved in one way or the other. lf not, Africom will be swallowed by MTN.
If they wanna make an impact they should offer unlimeted internet on the CDMA network like powertel but without the poor service delivery of powertel…We already have the modems and are just waiting to jump ship 🙂
This is just cheap marketing by Africom to attract potential subscribers with the “MTN” brand name. How sad. i am sure MTN won’t be impressed. It’s definitely not MTN style
They will roll in broadband internet into zimbabwe via africom
To all those who think that TechZim should have waited for the facts, here is a piece of advice from one of my associates:
”I’m just going to wait until all the facts are in…”
All the facts are never in. We don’t have all the
facts on the sinking of the Titanic, on the efficacy
of social media or on whether dogs make good
house pets. We don’t have all the facts on hybrid
tomatoes, global warming or the demise of the
industrial age, either.
The real question isn’t whether you have all the
facts. The real question is, “do I know enough to
make a useful decision?” (and no decision is still a
decision).
If you don’t, then the follow up question is, “What
would I need to know, what fact would I need to
see, before I take action?”
If you can’t answer that, then you’re not actually
waiting for all the facts to come in.”
Besides, I think the call by TechZim for readers to shed more light is part of crowd sourcing for news. Way to go TechZim.
Most likely a Traffic Peering arrangement. Zimbabwe is the largest destination for Telecoms Traffic in Africa from South Africa. And as we all know MTN and other major SA Operators have been trying desperately to put a foot in the Zimbabwean Telephony and Data market (The 60% Netone takeover deal fell through because of our 51% indigenous ownership scheme and so did the Telkom/Telone negotiations).
So we have 2 companies. Africom wants to be able to push voice traffic Internationally (currently one can only call locally on Africom) and MTN wants to send traffic to Zimbabwe. Win-win.
Point of correction mate, one can make international calls from an Africom line in an instant, trust me, I know this because I AM AFRICOM waiziya!!!
We have been able to make International calls from Africom network since last year. Except it wasn’t “official” but just for test purposes.
Magneto that was long ago not anymore, they have been billing for international calls for a while now.
Ok.Then it is probably this arrangement with MTN that precipitated that development
These guys are growing big time, very soon they will be everywhere and not just in Zim. The MTN partnership is abt them going regional, and even further more than it is about MTN coming into Zim.Talk about some healthy competition to all the other service providers and great innovation on the part of Africom and even more benefits to us the users.
I have a bit of internal insight into how Africom works and I am sorry to blow your bubble on this one…@disqus_aEGy1Q6qik:disqus
pple this is just a direct connection to MTN so that traffic is not routed via international gateways…MTN is negotiating with other zim operators for the same deal as well.
MTN wants to create seamless communications in Africa with Southern Africa, a pilot project. what they want to do basically is creating one network in the region…this means among other things there wont be any international calls so wen you call a person in SA with MTN it will be billed as a local call. It will also mean that wen you move to SA for example no need to activate roaming, it will be just as moving from Dotito to Harare….However doing this with Africom, mmmmmmm..MTN are eyeing a big operator the reason they want Netone.
Africom just connected their fibre to SA via MTN. the reason is more than 40% of traffic from Zimbabwe goes to South Africa. this is just a direct connection.
Is there anything from MTN in SA about this partnership i wonder.
I’m surprised/disappointed that TechZim failed to understand; this is basic business language 101. What it simply means is that going forward, Africom and MTN are maximising synergy and bringing their respective solutions to alignment. This involves actioning best-in-class deliverables on an on-going basis and taking advantage of the combined bandwidth. This new paradigm shift utilizes crowd-sourced feedback from the social media in business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts.
Was that so difficult to understand?
The Africom statement says NOTHING in a-whole-lot-of-words…