We just received an update on our Twitter feed from an alert Twitter user, Tafmak, with details on the new Econet pricing for the data services to be announced 2 days from now.
Here’s the Twitter screenshot:
At first glance all we can say is that the prices look steep. Very steep. Econet of course hasn’t made any official announcement, so we’re trying to tell ourselves these are not the packages to be announced. Still, seeing the announcement is just two days away, there’s not much hope in that.
We did the *140# thing to confirm the info. Try it and see. Maybe try buy as well and see if you can surf. Let us know what happens.
UPDATE (18 Oct 2010: 2000hrs): Seems Econet just turned off the *140# code for mobile data services. We’ve been trying it and all we get is “Request not Completed”. We think it’s been turned off because other access codes (like the *125# for credit balance inquiry) are getting processed. We hope this means those ridiculously high prices are not the real tariffs.
UPDATE (19 Oct 2010: 2253hrs): *140# has been turned back on. Sadly the prices remain the same. Starting to get really worried here.
Share
Home
31 comments
That will be very expensive… i think they should revise their prices or else i have to keep on using Internet Cafes. Wots yo take guys
How do these price compare with our neighbours, RSA in particular?
What is to become of the current 3G for $25 per month – phased out?
I think a cheap service with 20% delivery is not worth having. Take Comone dial-up @ less than $10 per month unlimited access, but you pay through the nose on your telephone bill, as much as $300 per month for heavy users! If I pay $100 – $150 per month unlimited usage on a decent broadband, I am far better off!
I do not see the end of Internet Cafes any time soon. They still have them in South Africa.
The cheapest way to avail broadband to as large a market as possible is for POTRAZ to legalize WiFi last mile connectivity – I speak from experience and practical application!
Steep alright, but then again what do you expect from a telecommunications company that sells FREE life insurance! Mind you not free INTERNET! Eish! What is that company currently offering free mobile internet called Africo……..?
tsano wangu strive havaponde vanhu kundaro hatimirirei wednesday gprs yangu irikutombosvikawo 60kbps but power tel inenge ichazoita big dhara havana kumbochera fiber yavo vakangoyiyanika pamagetsi.so thy shld pass it on to us
Aaaaaaah, internet cafe irinani by far or try Powertel kana kuti Ecoweb’s 4G
The prices are ridicously high. Ant these things supposed to be getting cheaper and cheaper by the day?
With these prices i think powertel is the best 50 dollars flat rate per month! Even internet cafe is selling 20MB for $2 this doesnt makes sense
WHHHHHAATTT!!!!!!!.IS THIS REAL.ARE U GOING TO OFFER TEA AND CAKE LIKE MANNA FROM HEAVEN WHILE I SURF.THIS IS UTTER NONSENSE.
if these are the prices that econet want to charge then i will be looking at other service provider as they seem to want to make money over night.i mean if it will costs me $98 for 1Gb then i would rather go for africom who are offering greater deals for far less money.
Cell C in SA is offering HSPA+ at 4c per MB! Do not worry all these data charges are going to go down soon due to market forces. I just wonder how these MNOs and ISP will make money in the long run with these every decreasing data prices!
Cheapest mobile broadband is from Cell C, which costs around 6 (south african) cents per MB – which is less that a US$0.01per megabyte. 1GB costs less than US$10.00
Disclaimer: Cell C is much,much cheaper than the competition. I know an MTN 1GB prepaid data bundle costs R289
citation:http://cellc.co.za/packages/datapromotion_sim
These guys are insane did they even do a market research before they even started to put their prices.Well an internet cafe is much much cheaper
this is outrageous………..were are they buying the bandwidth from?
Wifi is good but it uses ”junk frequency” meaning if we have a lot of Wifi deployments we will end up having a lot of interference and poor service downstream….
@Kwabeza. When will you finally get it that prices will only come down when there are many more thousands of people connecting? And many more thousands will only be able to connect when there is suitable infrastructure to allow for that. Which costs millions. Shouting and moaning about why prices are high is pointless when people do not understand what it takes to get that bandwidth to the consumer. WE WILL NOT BE AT SIMILAR PRICE LEVELS TO SOUTH AFRICA FOR YEARS TO COME!!! So stop comparing.
What happens to the us$25pm package? does it get phased out !!! what with the prices we paid for the lines and modems
If these prices are for real then good bye econet and I hope that they are going to loose thousands of customers who will look for better deals elsewhere. Powertel and Africom should get their acts together and prepare for lots of new customers. I will be one of them. At the moment I am with Econet but my F5 key on my keyboard shows signs of exhaustion from all the reloading of webpages whcih did not finish to load because the Econet connection bonged out. And imagine: today I tried to download a 500 KB email – 5 times the connection dies when somewhere between 90 to 98 percent had downloaded – the sixth time it worked – now that’s a way to make money because all this traffic would be charged by Econet, even the failed downloads. Congratulations! Another useless “service provider”.
@gora dude u should consider this econet’s prices are unrealistic if we are to compare africom’s 1 gig and econet’s one gig i think econet just rushed to put on prices before considering the puplic econet’s 1 gig is going for $98 dollas while africom is going for less than 20 dollas so i dnt think this has got anything to do with a thousand people connecting y cant they sell per megabite instead of what they are doing either way these guys prices are not competitive as an internet cafe and i will still maintain that i will go to an internet cafe untill econet reviews its prices or better still wait for other isp’s
In as much as it cost millions of dollars to set up infrastructure, as a consumer all i want is affordable service irrespective of how much the service provider spent. Is the service provider’s business to manage their costs. I guess battle lines have been drawn between the major ISPs. What i think will help the consumers is one or two more ISPs with the ability to provide service at a much lower cost. unfortunately we cannot do without comparing to neighbouring countries as that keeps prices in check. The choice is yours – Go cheap now or hang on to high prices hopping for a drop in the future, long future!
Is the Econet Fiber from Harare to Beitbridge now live??? If so, and Econet are charging these prices (retail) i wonder what the wholesale price will be to ISP’s. Remember that Africom might have to buy bandwith from Econet 🙁 Powertel has it’s own STM 1 connection to Botswana Telecom. Not sure what pricing they are getting, but some statements (by the ISP’s)are saying that it’s more expensive than VSAT. I doubt it, and it’s possible that Powertel and all the ISP’s are ripping of the consumer. So why should Econet not join in the fray.
comparison wit s.a is jus to get a picture of what internet should cost. Econet did a market research and concluded that every zimbabwean who uses the net only knows facebook. 5 meg on fcbk mobile is enuf 2 last a month. Its very unfortunate that they didnt consider ppl like us who download & surf 4 info rather than waste time on fcbk. ECONET SUX. Go 4 powertel or africom. They got far much better deals.
i’d like to start by saying that this is a really useful website with lots of good information. until a few weeks ago I had been using econet GPRS for several months with the usual frustration of excruciatingly low speeds and occasional inability to connect. Having gotten tired of the whole thing i decided to try another service provider (after seeing the extortionate econet data charges i think many others may be contemplating migrating as well!). after reading some comments on this website made by others about other service providers I went ahead and got myself a powertel 3G USB modem and card a few days ago. sadly its more of the same, during the day its almost unusable, establishing a connection takes several attempts. at night (after about 9pm) its much faster, peak download speed about 50kb/s, but how practical is this “inverse browsing” where a user only has access when most other “normal” people are sleeping? anyone thinking powertel right now should think twice as the service is likely to become worse before it improves (if ever).
I fear that with other service providers such as africom it may simply be a case of the same frustrations of poor service. maybe you guys could give us a rundown of the ISP choices out there and what you think is the best value for money right now.The way i see it, affordable and reliable internet remains a distant dream.
For a heavy internet user either WiMax with YoAfrica or VSAT makes better sense. Just depends on how much bandwidth u need and when u need it.
and how deep your pockets are
Its $100 a gig. I use 250meg a day. That is 7.5gig/month or $750. VSAT costs $3k to install and $250/month for uncapped access.
Its a no brainer
Failing that YoAfrica bandwidth during peak hours is a little more expensive than Econet 3G with unlimited surfing after hours. WiMax or UHF is not a bad proposition
They are struggling with numbers, They are just presenting the customer with the actual cost of the service. For example if they are paying SEACOM high fees for bandwidth… they will in turn charge the customer high fees to make a profit. You also need to remember that they are also paying intrest on the money borrowed to build the infastructure.
Econet’s business model has never been pro customer… from the time they started they have always taken the customer for granted…
Rip off season is far from over, I can tell you.
econet i think econet need 2 improve your networks…slow :() very slow 🙁 ….
I’m extremely disappointed and disgusted!!! i just bought Ecoweb’s 4G WiMax modem two months ago, and it was not cheap, but it was a pleasure to finally have internet that ‘worked’ and was also uncapped, which i thought was a fair deal since the modem cost $175 and the monthly subs cost $115, then all of a sudden, I go to pay my monthly subs, and I’m told i have to go to ECONET and pay for one of those ridiculous packages!!!!
Now firstly, i did not go to ECONET to sign up for anything, i went to ECOWEB, at no point was i informed that the service i had bought and paid for would be changed. now someone might say ECOWEB and ECONET are one and the same, but i recall trying to pay my subs at an ECONET office and was told that i could ONLY pay at ECOWEB!
Now to my thinking, that’s like selling someone a Harley Davidson motorcycle and then when they go to collect they find a shiny new mountain bike!
Its nothing short of outright con artistry… the hand is quicker than the eye!
I would gladly give these people back their equipment and take my money back, but i have a feeling this would be like trying to squeeze orange juice from a stone.
maybe we should boycott this econet broadband thing we want real internet at affordable prices not the current one that is for no brainers who spend their MB on fcbk
[…] the one year wait was worth it or not will be answered in the next several days. The prices, which are on the steep end, suggest already that the service will probably not be affordable to a lot of Zimbabweans. We’ll […]