There’s a lot more to competition than just price, but for now, local telecoms operators are slugging it out on the dollars and cents front.
TelOne, one of the more disruptive players this year, recently started a promotion for its WiFi service. The $1-for-100 MB service has been had one major change with an additional 250 MB thrown in for the $1 voucher.
This $1 for 350 MB offer becomes the most generous on the market for the $1 entry price segment, a spot that Econet had staked a claim to last month with its 300 MB dream bundles and 250 MB day bundles. It also clearly differentiates TelOne from the other WiFi providers like Telco that had a $1-for-110 MB.
Without flooring mega offers like Africom’s $6 for 6GB, or offering free WhatsApp, TelOne is competing on the one metric that most people will relate with instantly, low prices.
350 MB for $1 is a generous offer on data, no doubt, and it’s hardly the sort of offer we thought we’d be getting from telecoms operators. One remarkable aspect here is that these price adjustments weren’t influenced by POTRAZ regulation but just plain old competition.
Kudos to TelOne for starting a run on prices that got mobile operators to rethink their broadband offers. As internet consumers we are just hoping that this causes further adjustments in the market. It would be good though if TelOne follows this up with a wider network of hotsposts.
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Telone has proved that WiFi is now a basic service for all, not a luxury for the elite, some service providers all these years were making internet a luxury to the masses of Zimbabweans. Once again Thank you Telone management; but make sure you widen as fast as possible the network of hotsposts not in CBDs only but also in High Density Suburbs. On behalf of Bulawayo residents kindly consider us, according to your infor there are just less than 7points the whole of Bulawayo City.
One thing I would love to see ZOL and Tel*One do is introduce a concept similar to Fon spots.
If ZOL provided a ruckus access point to every unlimited access subscriber that could provide two signals, one for home and one that provides ZOL spot access they would cover the entire city in no time at all with ZOL spots. This is easy because you only need to run to VLAN’s on the fiber. One VLAN that authenticates the ZOL spot access maybe via a PPOe session or whatever authentication method they want. And the second VLAN that provides the user in question with their private connection to the internet. For instance I have ZOL and Tel*One at home, my neighbour would be able to log into ZOL spot even if they do not have fiber by using the first VLAN and SSID. I think legacy ZOL spot used to work in a similar fashion with an SSID that established a PPOe session for the private use of the coffee shop and and an SSID that took you to the ZOL spot landing page for you to login and get online.
“A Fon Spot is made up of two separate, dedicated WiFi signals – one private signal just for you, one shared signal for other members and visitors to the network. It allows you to safely share a bit of WiFi with others and in return, they can share safely with you. All the Fon Spots together create a crowdsourced network where everyone who contributes connects for free.” from http://www.fon.com
mmm not bad idea but what about hotspot user privacy & security? As long the host user has physcl access to the router he/she will b tempted to sniff packets passing through th router. M sure these ISP ‘s r aware of this, trust me identity theft (hackers) will be the first to sign up to offer this service as hosts
No the moment its sepatated by vlans its close to secure cz no inter vlan routing is enabled think tht every is on the same fibre network bt you cnt access anything from the next guy
there r some factors to consider b4 we announce the winner here
1. amount of data being offer eg econet 250 MB telone 350MB
winner:telone
2.Network accessibility , is the service available everywhere you go? eg econet 3/2G is available almost everywhere and telone is available in selected areas
winner: econet
3. Window period
winner: telone
4. Download speed (bandwidth throttlin)
winner:?….., (econet avarage download speed in my area is 1.5mbps top speed 3mbps) telone……… guys fill the gap ,pliz
5. Reliability, is the connection stable?
winner: econet y? coz I tried to connect to their (telone) spot until I gave up
Telone offer is well and good however in terms of speed I think Africom offers the best speed followed by Zolspot but good well done on the pricing! Now got more options? Does the data expire?
have NEVER came across a telone wifi spot. they should subcontract wifi points if they are serious about this product. i am in Byo and i aint trying to look for this product from NUST campus (enough miles from town) and library (CBD) or malls i have never been to. They should put this product in a 1 square kilometre area in town if you’re serious. Anyways, if Johanesburg CBD has insignificant wifi coverage lets just keep dreaming about wifi here unless we have it at work or home. all these announcements really disappoint me.
As long as we have to huddle in some designated corners of the city, these WiFi offerings from all the providers are of no real benefit to anyone. Defeats the whole idea of mobility.