TelOne, Zimbabwe’s sole fixed line operator, has just announced the introduction of physical prepaid recharge cards for their ADSL broadband service. The recharge cards come in $25, $45, $85 and $160 denominations which have data caps of 10GB, 25GB, 50GB and unlimited data respectively.
We expected the different cards to have uniform speeds but a contact at the company tells us this is not so. The different cards are different “packages” and indeed represent company’s existing Basic ($25), Silver, Gold and Platinum ($160) packages. What doesn’t make sense ofcourse is if there’s a limitation already on the amount of data one can consume, why limit the speed? In fact, wouldn’t it benefit TelOne to ensure every package is getting the fastest speed possible, so they buy more data faster?
Anyway, speeds aside, the recharge cards are only available at TelOne shops, so for now nothing changes about needing to go to a TelOne shop to buy ADSL data. We’re guessing though that eventually they’ll have a bulk price distribution model so that they can offload most of the consumer facing hard work to electronic voucher distributors and street vendors.
We’re told though that a mobile money buying option is coming soon.
Here’s the full announcement.
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18 comments
So does this mean that I can switch packages i.e. use basic this month, unlimited next month, back to basic again the following? That would be a nice deal if thats the case, or the ability to activate basic when something goes wrong with the other links
I agree why different speeds if there is the data limitation? kkkkk
I think it is about the telone capacity, they cannot give all of us the same faster speeds because their infrastructure cannot handle it for now. This is why they have things like contention ratios 4:1 where four users share the line and 1:1 where your connection speed is cut and shared to add more users on a network. And it would be nice if tel one could clarify if I can switch between packages without having to walk in their offices and fill in a form.
Stuff is still expensive
why should i buy a scratch card when i can just pay for my ADSL in the same office?
they dont seem to be limiting speed anymore.
The present problem is that if your TelOne account has expires, you cannot recharge from your expired ADSL facility, you have got to do it from another online device or from an internet café which you might not have at the time.
TelOne should therefore look into configuring its system to ensure that even if one’s account has expired, that it should at least allow its website to be accessed for the purpose of recharging the expired account, even from that expired account.
TelOne must also configure the mooted mobile money recharge or refueling facility to automatically ‘juice’ the account being recharged automatically through its website rather than for it to give you a recharge number that you have to recharge after the order of the physical recharge cards. One may still not be able to recharge if TelOne doesn’t make its website accessible from an expired ASDL account.
Besides, it would be more user-friendly if TelOne mobile money refueling happens instantly at the moment of purchasing the TelOne broadband along the lines of ‘juicing’ one’s mobile phone using for example, One Wallet, Telecash or Ecocash.
TelOne must try and avoid the manual mobile money juicing system that PowerTel uses with Ecocash, whereby they have to wait for an electronic print out from Econet before juicing the various accounts which had a time lag sometimes of as much as 5 hours during working days and as much as more than 48 hours if weekends and holidays are involved.
However, TelOne purportedly increased the speeds of all packages by as much as 3 times, but even after I was moved to Basic/Bronze plus, I did not see any improvement in the speed, even after hours, I wonder if it’s not just a marketing gimmick?
If I recharge before the present bandwidth and window expires, is the unused bandwidth and window added to the new data and window period?
I am able to recharge after I have used up my data. It seems that page is not metered.
I didn’t get a response to the last sentence in the article. “If I recharge before the present bandwidth and window expires, is the unused bandwidth and window added to the new data and window period?” Being pretty immobile as it is I will obviously be disadvantage because I require it for home use only, i.e. after work and some weekend days
Hi do they send a list of sites visited by one?
Utterly disappointed. Some of the cards are ineffective
Recharging is a nightmare.juss wnt go thru
l don’t stay at home during the week days ,what happens to the data bundles that l would have paid and did not use at the end of the month? can l switch packages? The scratching of cards sucks please …connect us automatically after paying.
Recharging using a scratch card a nightmare. Just can’t go through. What shud I do now? Had no problems in the past. Please use some user friendly method
Trying to recharge from home but eish I can’t do it. What’s the procedure
Please do away with these so called scratch cards, cauz are giving us a great problem in recharging and at the sametime $25 card can only take 5days. If one asks you say that speed increased. Take us back where this ADSL was introduced where we could use upto 30days. So please understand your customers’ problem I thank you.
Recharging with your scratch cards a real nightmare. Try a user friendly method.
recharging using your vouchers is a nightmare on your website