The Invisible Hand. I can’t say I remember much from Economics, but that’s one concept that stood out because, well, it explained a lot of things especially in consumerism.
Lately, I’ve realised that I don’t need to go far to dust up my knowledge on Adam Smith’s theories or figure out that the guy was right. I just look at what’s happening with local internet service providers.
We only just started the second half of the year, but by now every decent broadband provider (including the not-so-generous mobile operator) has tinkered with its product lineup, effecting changes on price, quality (that’s debatable by the way) and range.
None of this has been influenced by a warm sentiment towards the masses, it’s just the economics. Where money is hard to come by (Zim economic environment in 2015) and options are many (local broadband in 2015), providers will butcher each other, trying to win the customer’s affection.
Which brings us to the first shot fired in this second half of 2015. TelOne, arguably the biggest disruptor in broadband this year, has adjusted its ADSL packages again. This time, it’s not price, or name, it’s the speed.
A new set of download and upload speeds for TelOne ADSL which apparently were put into effect on the 2nd of July, have been circulating. We only got to know this through TelOne subscribers who are part of the Techzim WhatsApp chat groups.
The $25 Home Plus package now offers download speeds of up to 2 Mbps, up from the previous 1 Mbps. The Home Premier package download speed has jumped from 1 Mbps to up to 3 Mbps. The Infinity uncapped packages are now offering up to 2 Mbps for the $89 Infinity Pro package, and up to 3 Mbps for the $125 Infinity Master package.
| PACKAGE | PRICE ($US) | NEW SPEED (Mbps) | OLD SPEED (Mbps) | CAP (GB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Basic | 15 | up to 1 | up to 1 | 2 |
| Home Plus | 25 | up to 2 | up to 1 | 10 |
| Home Premier | 42 | up to 3 | up to 1 | 25 |
| Infinity Pro | 89 | up to 2 | up to 1 | Unlimited |
| Infinity Master | 125 | up to 3 | up to 2 | Unlimited |
| Infinity Supreme | 150 | up to 4 | up to 4 | Unlimited |
Smells fishy?
Adam Smith aside, it sounds too good to be true, so what’s the catch? Well, this is the delivery of internet, not a street vending deal. There’s that huge caveat that comes with those two nasty words, “up to”, that every internet provider loves pasting on their products.
It’s what separates the countless providers on the planet (it’s not just in Zimbabwe) from a regulatory probe and probable legal case for an inaccurate representation of facts on a product or service.
As usual, TelOne has placed that disclaimer there, though it’s worth noting that even with that exception, providers do increase the speeds they offer for the specific packages. It might not always be at 2 Mbps, but it’s faster than what you’ll get with the “up to 1 Mbps” package. The regulator makes sure of that.
I’m not a TelOne ADSL subscriber, but I’d love to hear from users of these packages if there’s a change that they have noticed on their download speeds.
In any case, the effect on the other internet providers is what really piques interest here. I wouldn’t expect every ISP to march in with a doubling of speeds straight away.
We’ve got providers like uMax that stick with their standard 1 Mbps (it’s not “up to”, it’s consistently 1 Mbps) Besides, it’s not a forced matter, and some providers want to compete on other fronts.
Our only consolation is that invisible hand, which will drive the rest of the pack to look at their speeds again. With the way things are going, it’s bound to happen, we just have to be patient. After all, the second half just started.
Share
Home
35 comments
i noticed my speeds were going up to 3Mbps, i thought they had mistakenly configured my account 🙂 🙂 Kudos Telone!!!
Paid for set up of my ADSL in Glenview a week ago. They have not done anything yet. Is this normal?
Nigel, it would have been nice if you have interviewed one of tech people or ceo at Telone to find what actually they did to increase speed. As it stands, its still gossip with no backup.
If one have real facts at hand, that will make an informed decision whether to try them or not.
For my part, l use to have their broadband and it was horrible. They have a spider web of cables going into my place and you get different things on different cables.
If, lets say they have upgraded their backbone hard, or trunk lines or something, then to me l would give them a second thought.
But nobody in the gossiping community can give you such infor unless you interview the write people.
Please give us a complete picture not a half cooked pie. Most most will thank you for that.
Thank you TelOne… this is logical since the cost of delivering an STM of Internet to Zimbabwe has gone down. we should get to a stage where speed is no longer the issue but the consumed Volume of data..
you are blind man, dont tok like u enjoy buffering. M expecting somthing like 10mbps not 3 mbps. In my family only 3 people use internet , lets say 2 mbps for skyping , 2 mbps for BBC streaming and 2 mbps for genral use at the same time = 6 mbps for better expernc and 10 mbps for seamless exp. I dont enjoy waiting 3-6 hours for a movie *yawn* thts annoying
So don’t buy Tel-One ADSL then. Get something else like Tel-One SHDSL instead of calling other people blind.
2 mbps for SKYPE???
our devices are hd equiped so they are bandwidth hungry, 1 mbps is good for low resolution cams but picture quality is a major blow
I was just saying internet without good speed = terrible expernc . Ok lets say telone sells 100Gb data with 256kbps speed for 25 dollars, do u think u can use even 50% of yo data?
tell me more about tel one shdsl, ddnt knw about it. how much for 6 or 10mbps connection. Zol fibre is available in my area bt i tried reach other techzimbo for advice to use fibroniks or not , unfortunatly no one responded..
This is what we call false advertising. The download speed is around 256kbps (i.e file download speed is 25kbps-50kbps), if it changed to 1MB its much better for you…if its 2MB for real, trust me youldn’t be complaigning. What we real need is the username and password into the modem so as to adjust the bandwidth cap from either 256kbps to 1MB or even higher. They wont let the public know this. I know how you can calculate your bandwidth and fully utilize it. If you didnt know about Connectify you can get it here http://www.connectify.com . Or try Connection test tools like SpeedTest for your internet connection.
The above comment applies to Telone Adsl $25 package. And any other internet connection you might have
TelOne has a rather interesting motive for increasing speed and not data caps i.e. customers will use up their data faster and recharge more often. If they (the customers) realise they love the speeds and “can’t live without them” then maybe they’ll subscribe to one of the higher tier “infinity” bundles (instead of exhausting data ever so often) and the company’s books will be looking good either way.
Only time will tell how successful their strategy will be. Zim internet subscribers are an interesting lot and we’ll see how they react to this move.
bingo. actually had an argument with one of their employees last year who thought slower speeds would force us to pay more. they ddnt. but these guys need increase the data. unfortunately this is zim……
My work speeds have increased from 2mb to just over 3mb. But with the size of content, apps and torrents 3mbs isnt fast enough. I would still tick to getting ZOL fibre for my home at 10mbs download anyday. Ko whatsapp group topinda sei?
guys always check yo line rate before you upgrade example http://imgur.com/JR8Jyhi
if yo max download is below 2 mbps dont bother to upgrade for speed gain
mine its 568kb/s
nxaaa 🙁 ;(
no, nadder, nix, in Highfields where i surf from, nothing changed. its still horrible. i cant even download a 20meg snippet video. the best i get…..is maybe 30kbps on the best day….usually its 5kbps. Nothing changed
u r using telone adsl? I guesse u r too far from their nearby exchange center sorry for u
But thats the whole point. If you had bad speeds before that havenot changed.
I live a stone throw away from their CBD HQ and my speeds were horrible.
i am on adsl. less than 2 km to southerton telone telephone exchange. am hoping that some other affordable provider with reasonable speed will come along.
mac chip and owen , I reccommend you to google for possible adsl interference. My aunty stay less than a 500 metres from where I stay but her adsl expernc ws a nightmare even though aftr telone team tried to tweak connection , her max line rate is less than 1200 mbps. they are too many connections in her home including security alarm ( m nt sure if alarm can interfare with adsl) , intercom connections etc tunnelled side by side with copper cables
owen and mac post yo router wan stats screenshot maybe I can help figure out yo problem. check example of mine that i posted last yestaday http://imgur.com/JR8Jyhi. u can log in to your router via 192.168.1.1 username: user ,password: user (in small letters). u dnt need to log in on imgur.com in-oder to post yo screenshot
Cool, l no longer use Telone and had everyone of them starting from telephone engineers to the actual network guys at my place.
Tell me more about the twiks maybe someone might benefit
Very Unhappy coz i am on Infinity Supreme and no change for me
Am thinking of re-locating to zim in december. My main worry is internet availability. Currently i need minimum 15GB of data a day, mostly for my kids playing games, Netflix and wifey who is always on youtube. The Telone infinity is way too expensive for the speeds they advertise. Both telone and zol recently dug trenches side by side on my road in Malbra red roofs. Dont know which way to go between the two
15 GB per day? r u kidding? Go for zol business package 20mbps for $495 or 30mbps $725. Dont expect that Zim Isp’s will let u download 15GB per day on unlimited residential packages
Cool, l no longer use Telone and had everyone of them starting from telephone engineers to the actual network guys at my place.
Tell me more about the twiks maybe someone might benefit
Expect to pay at least $300 per month for the minimum 🙂 Internet in Zim is uber expensive!
Connection speed in KweKwe for the $25 package is still 1mbps on my line.
they need to increase data caps on the cheaper home packages or introduce unlimited browsing with a download data cap ….ndoo improvement yatiri kuda iyoyo…..$15 for 2GB really telone????
i download average 15-20gig mvies everyday with adsl, average size fo 1080p movie iz 1,5gig -2 gig…so adsl does it fo me
TechZim you need to confirm if your artical is correct please? I still battle to watch a You Tube clip during the day with my 1mpbs line from my Laptop. It sounds like only a few selected areas have had an increase and not the rest of the country.
I would like to think TelOne increased the speeds in some areas not all.
I upgraded from $25 Home Plus which was giving me 0.96Mbps(up to1Mbps) to $42 Home Premier(purported to give up to3Mbps) but I am still getting 0.96Mbps.
Maybe they are on a rollout.