Econet puts Dream bundles to sleep

It had to happen at some point. The Dream Bundles– one of Econet Wireless’ more generous products-cum-promotions have come to an end.

The product, which was launched as a promotion slated to run until the 30th of September, is no longer listed on its USSD menu and according to responses to questions asked on its Facebook page, The only explanation is that it’s just an end to a promotion that had reached its expiration date. Other Econet broadband promos like the Social Media bundles, the $2 bundle and the Day Bundles are still active.

As much as Econet has justified this as the eventual end of a promotion, this product Go-To-Sleep gives the impression that the Dream Bundles – which offered 1 GB of data for $1 or 3 GB for $2 between 10 pm and 8 am were probably oversubscribed and being abused. Like any other off-peak broadband product, this would have jeopardised  their sustainability.

Econet and the two other mobile operators we have locally usually extend promotions, especially if the customer retention, subscriber growth, and revenue bump is significant.

In the case of the Dream Bundles, their huge data allowance, plus their speeds always made it easy to turn to them as the best broadband package for major downloads and they gave the torrenting crowd a decently priced data option. Econet probably had to make a compromise between marginal revenue increase and network quality.

While this is one huge consideration that Econet has had to make, the other mobile operators will have to figure out the sweet spot in terms of pricing and broadband allowance, if they want to beat Econet to a reintroduction of the Dream Bundles. They’d likely be a hit anyway, seeing that the vicious load shedding schedules (4 am to 10 pm) from ZESA, the local power concern, have redefined off-peak periods for Zimbabweans.

Econet subscribers need not worry too much though. Their mobile operator is likely working on a new broadband product that hopefully won’t be strained by overuse. The recent promos for free 50MB and 1 GB data allowances (check out that SMS spam that they are flooding your inbox with) suggest a price and product fit that is being figured out. At the very least, it’s some consolation that there’s a pocket of 1 GB data that you can get for a reduced price.