It’s clear working from home is going to be a thing and the question now is which service provider do you go for with the best service. Best is not always about the cheapest. It’s a lot more than that.
In this article we shall be looking at TelOne and Zol, the 2 biggest fixed internet service providers in Zimbabwe and just like the comparison of the best mobile data bundles, these 2 titans will battle it out in 4 categories that include.
Categories
- Network Coverage: Which areas is the service available
- Selection: How broad is the product range
- Perks: What does each one of the packages have that make it attractive
- Price: We all know this one. Cheapest one wins
Ratings
Ratings are out of 5. 1 is a poor score in whatever category and 5 is the best score. At the end, scores of each package from all the categories are added up and the package with the highest score wins. Enough with the formalities. On with the show.
Network Coverage
| Zol Fibroniks | TelOne ADSL/Fiber |
|---|---|
| Largest network by volume of data consumption and number of subscribers | Second largest network by volume of data consumption and number of subscribers |
| 4 | 3 |
Selection
| Zol Fibroniks | TelOne ADSL/Fiber |
|---|---|
| 13 packages to choose from that include: 5GB 10GB 10GB* 40GB 50GB 40GB** 50GB** 100GB 150GB 100GB** Unlimited Unlimited*** Unlimited**** | 12 packages to choose from that include: 10GB 10GB** 15GB 30GB 30GB** 60GB 60GB** 200GB 500GB Unlimited***** Unlimited****** Unlimited****** |
| 5 | 4 |
Already things start getting a bit complicated so let me give you the details surrounding the asterisks ‘*’
*refers to the bundle having an extended validity period compared to one with the same data cap (Zol)
**refers to a bundle with an additional allocation for night browsing. Allocation has the same data cap as the main bundle. (Zol & TelOne)
***refers to an unlimited package with a speed cap of 30Mbps (Zol)
****refers to an unlimited package with a speed cap of 100Mbps (Zol)
*****refers to an unlimited package with a data cap of 1000GB (TelOne)
******refers to an unlimited package with a data cap of 2000GB (TelOne)
Zol and Telone’s approach to their package structure is pretty different. These differences will be highlighted at the end of the battle.
Perks
| Zol Fibroniks | TelOne ADSL/Fiber |
|---|---|
| Zol on-the-go allows you to use your home balance at any Zol Spot nationwide | 100GB free DEOD Video on demand data with every bundle purchased |
| No data cap on unlimited packages | No speed cap on unlimited packages |
| Widest Fiber network | More payment options (EcoCash, OneMoney, Telecash, Paynow) |
| 3 | 4 |
Price Per GB
| Zol Fibroniks | TelOne ADSL/Fiber | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest | Z$37.86 | Z$8.80 Z$1.30 (Including Unlimited) |
| Average | Z$50.46 | Z$35.57 Z$32.61 (Including Unlimited) |
| 3 | 5 |
Service Quality & Delivery
This one needs your input. Yes you, the reader. What rating would you give your service provider?
Zol Fibroniks
[crowdsignal rating=8863215]
TelOne ADSL
[crowdsignal rating=8863219]
TelOne Fiber
[crowdsignal rating=8863224]
Results
| Zol Fironiks | TelOne ADSL/Fiber | |
|---|---|---|
| Network Coverage | 4 | 3 |
| Selection | 5 | 4 |
| Perks | 3 | 4 |
| Price | 3 | 5 |
| Total | 15 | 16 |
Thoughts…
It’s very close. TelOne is a mere 1 point ahead of Zol but this is over details on paper. The service quality and availability will determine whether you pick one over the other.
As you can tell some comparisons are really not as apples to apples as we would want. There are almost no intersecting data packages to make direct price comparisons motivating us to use the price per GB method but even that has its fair serving of anomalies.
Same can be said for the perks section of the tables where the definition of unlimited is not the same for both service providers. Unlimited in business is a myth if you didn’t know and so once you go through the fine print these are their definitions of unlimited.
TelOne Unlimited*
You can download whatever you want with no speed throttling but depending on which unlimited package you are on you have a data limit of either 1000GB or 2000GB (As at 26 June 2020)
Zol Unlimited*
You can download whatever you want with no data cap however if your volume of downloads in a given time is consistently high then your internet connection will be throttled a.k.a internet health. (As at 26 June 2020)
Share your thoughts in the comments on how fair you see this comparison.
Comments
9 responses
“Selecetion” “Zol Fironiks” etc etc … lol you guys are funny !!
Sorry about that. It’s been a long day lol
Zol is good but pa internet health apa mmm throttling my speed inini ndabhadhara
For that uh uh. Siya mabundles angu apere. Telone is okay ipapo it just needs to improve infrastructure for speed yavo
You should add other factors into the mix as well, like do they ACTUALLY provide the speeds they promise (my experience on ZOL fibre and TEL-One adsl is that tel-one is far superior in that to ZOL) and the overall customer experience from fixing issues quickly to their billing systems (in my experience they both fairly poor with this but ZOL WAY worse!) Overall out of 5 i would mark telone 3 and ZOL nearer 1
are the telone packages really uncapped what happens if you exceed the fair usage cap of 1tb are you cut off or you then browse at slow speeds, because if you are cutoff it then means the package is simply a 1tb capped package and not unlimited
IT’S are profiteering from the poor services they provide at very unreasonable prices compared to many countries in Africa.
This is a sector which needs more competition.
ISPs are profiteering from the poor services they provide at very unreasonable prices compared to many countries in Africa.
This is a sector which needs more competition.
Don’t know abt zol but telone was good but for the past few days it’s been crap . I recently discovered that it now works at night only it’s down during the day
well its an interesting comparison, but would be better to compare how long it will take you to have service installed, eg comparing fibre for both ISP’s, the CX from first contact till service has been provisioned.
what makes customers stay with a service provider is definitely the experience.