So, what do you do if you’re a mobile operator and your customers have been clamouring all year about your mobile broadband tariffs being too high? Well, if you’re Econet you go ahead and reduce the price but you only make that reduction apply between 12 midnight and 5 AM. You also go ahead and limit it to customers buying data bundles.
Yes people, Econet has indeed finally reduced the mobile broadband prices, but if you’re like us, you’ll probably find the owl browsing hours, and the bundle business the most inconvenient.
Information we received from an Econet official is that since 14 December, the company reduced the night time rates to 4c per megabyte but this only applies to users that buy bundles, at the regular price. He explained: “How this works is that if the user has 10MB of smart data bundle at 0.10c then he will be able to get 25 MB of usage”.
In short, an Econet bundle is now worth more when everyone’s asleep. Precisely because of that; everyone’s asleep. According to the official we spoke to the network is mostly congested during the day but it frees up at night and they’d like to give some of that freeness back to the customers.
This sort-of-reduction is not a promo so no expiry dates here. It can only get lower we assume.
The out of bundle price, the most straight forward package there is (and we suspect the most used as well), remains at the pricey 15 cents per MB. We wish for the day when all this bundle business will go away and users are just charged for their usage straight up. Besides, buying bundles itself doesn’t always work forcing subscribers to use the out of bundle price.
Why not just simplify things the NetOne way; 7 cents per MB period.
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11 comments
taura hako
Lol @ “sort of”. Econet is as capitalist as they come. They would only change if there was some disruption in the industry.
Dohhh… I thought that was common knowledge. All manner of networks land, cellular, computer have their peaks during business and other “waking hours”
For the coder, it is a welcome relief and night-time browsing is a welcome discomfort for those extra byte.
Otherwise…yawwn…not much, Econet. Make your money.
As someone once said here, “Inspired to rip your world”
Its still not enough…regional broadband tariffs are much lower…econet continues to bribe govt officials thus preventing other competitors from fairly competing. they influenced the ministry of finance to turn down the merger of netone and mtn. they used all the hook and crook to remain a monopoly in zimbabwe…now we have the most expensive telecoms services in the world…all these ministers know this but they cant do much about it. after all econet is the largest cheque provider to NSSA and ZIMRA..
citation please. Otherwise, this is the irresponsible garbage from Social networks that we spoke about in the other article.
Source/proof please!!!
I think we all forget the fact that Econet invested aggressively over he last years and investors need their ROI. Wonder why people dont complain about Netone poor service and lack of coverage and lack better services. Lets face it Econet is just better than all these other players. Good things come at a costs gentlemen. Some of the accusation for Econet are not founded. Lets be objective at times and not spread malicious lies. Lets enjoy the midnight broadband guys some of us are application developers and students we work at night. this is good for us. These midnight offers are even available in South Africa. Lets is not compare oranges and apples. South Africa is a matured and competitive market and Zimbabwe is not yet matured. My two cents.
Yes, Econet invested a lot of money, but let’s face it in a business sense here. Why should you scare away possible customers by charging exorbitant prices? Econet should understand that the higher the number of customers on the net the more money they make. If they continue to charge those high prices they will face reality; Broke. Zimbabweans are good at switching to a cheaper product when it is available. That’s why almost every Zimbabwean has all the lines from the main Service Providers (Econent, Telecel and NetOne). This is because, when there are promotions from any other service providers, they will all flock to that one and leave behind the most expensive one “Econet”. Ask yourself; why should you wait till 12 midnight to make a call or to browse when Telecel and NetOne would still offer the same service at a cheaper price and convenient time? Econet should stop telling us what they did, but should start attracting customers to their flock. We don’t care what they invested but we need better services and affordable ones. Someone told me to stop so I’m done.
Has anyone else encountered questionable data billing on Econet? On multiple occasions, the bundles depleted overnight just because I had enabled mobile data without enabling data sync (Android). My mobile reported minimal transfers (measured in KB) vs the 9MB+ according to Econet.
I tested this; there is no reduction at all. Midnight Robbery