Posted inConnectivity

The mystery of ZESA bills/power cuts: an alternative solution

As a citizen with an interest in national energy matters I have been following issues regarding the recent re-introduction of power cuts by ZESA, the country’s sole utility with particular interest. Though most residents have resorted to complaining against the utility, the reality of the matter is that the country lacks capacity to generate enough energy to meet demand.
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Posted inConnectivity Mobile Money

Predicting an eCommerce boom in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe has always been a tricky landscape for online ventures. We have seen many an entrepreneur launch an exciting platform only to see it fail. Ventures such as tengesa.com easily come to mind. Don’t get me wrong here; I am not saying we do not have success stories in Zimbabwe.
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Posted inConnectivity

It’s all about the PR, Buddie!

Last night, I was taken aback by the way that Econet Wireless was handling, or rather not handling, its very serious service delivery crisis. Since Saturday evening, subscribers have been expressing frustration and anger at the strange and unexplained disappearance of their airtime. From the people I have spoken to, people who had topped up their accounts with as much as $5 found, upon trying to make calls, that their balances were down to $0.
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Posted inConnectivity Startups

You don’t need to be an engineer to start a technology business

Gary Shayne who founded Cellular Systems, later renamed Celsys, which he listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange when he was only 27 years old and went on to sell to Lonrho was a chartered accountant, and not a telecommunications engineer. Sure there were many telecommunications engineers who knew telecommunications, and who could boast more experience in telecommunications than Gary, even 27 years of experience, but what did they do?
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Posted inConnectivity

Discourse: A reinvention of web forums

For those not familiar with the name Jeff Atwood, he is the co-founder of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, the former being arguably the best computer programming Q&A site on the interwebs. After establishing the site into the success it is today, Atwood left the company to focus on another problem he had identified with one of the internet’s old technologies: Forums.
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Posted inBroadband

My terrible experience at the hands of PowerTel

It is my hope that through this open letter we may begin to see a change in PowerTel's approach to customer service and business as a whole. I bought a PowerTel line on the 28th of January 2013, this after I had summoned enough courage to retry their service after having a horrible experience with them in 2010.
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Posted inConnectivity

Journey into smartphone ownership

A few years ago I was browsing in a store in Boksburg looking to purchase a phone. The BlackBerry was all the rage then and the iPod was extremely popular. I gazed at the multiple deals which we only see now courtesy of Econet and Gtel in Harare. While I was busy comparing the many features of the models I was contemplating - the biggest feature being my price range - a teenager joined me and asked me a question I shall never forget. “So what kind of phone are you looking for?”
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Posted inConnectivity Social Media

WeChat is better than WhatsApp

Just before Christmas I got a sponsored link on my Facebook wall begging me to download and install an application called WeChat. I normally don’t look at those invites, no matter how tempting they sound. But being on my annual leave on a hot, slow December afternoon, I just thought, why not have a look.
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