Remember Econet’s Green Kiosk chargers? A Swaziland based company has just launched a solution along those lines, with the only difference that theirs is just the charging solution and it can be conveniently carried around easily.
Apparently BlackBerry is just discovering now that if they could have looked beyond just inside their ecosystem 1for the growth of its much loved BlackBerry Messenger, they could have made it to the top messaging position WhatsApp occupies today.
If you thought being able to pay for your DStv at a supermarket till point was convenient (it was, we tried it), this is just going to be awesome. It’s one development we know most middle income families have been waiting for.
Recently I had to change banks because the one I was banking with is apparently going under. And Their customer care service is at its worst but that’s not the issue; I was essentially I was told by the executives at the top was that they couldn’t let me withdraw my money (we’re talking small…
I still remember when my aunt handed me my first cellphone at the beginning of 2006: A Nokia 1100 with an Econet 099 SIM. Back then if you did not want to go wrong you bought a Nokia phone: they were cheap, reliable, user friendly and the accessories were everywhere.
Not anymore. uMAX has slashed prices so much they’re now as mass market as your mobile operators. The company announced today the introduction of a monthly 20GB data bundle for just $75 which comes with the uMAX setup equipment free.
The annual Zimbabwe Golf Open is always a great time (and place) to buy Africom gadgets. See, Africom always has a booth at the tournament and they basically sell devices at giveaway.
Independence day is upon us and with it we are cause to reflect on our history. Colonization itself is viewed with universal disapproval whilst the only undisputed advantageous outcome of colonisation was the technology brought into the country as a result.
Something that has always struck me as strange is that no matter how unreliable the national power company’s supply is, there’s just not that many people that consider solar power an alternative. By the urban middle class, solar is regarded either as a rich people’s luxury, or, on the other extreme, a rural village utility.
Sometime in the midst of September 1958 the Bank of America began its Visa card program by mailing 60,000 unsolicited credit cards over all the country. This resulted in the first most successful implementation of a public general credit card and to this day Visa has the largest market share in the credit card industry
A press release today announced the launch of a mobile based remittance service by First National Bank (FNB) and OK Zim for people in South Africa to send money to Zimbabwe
This is one event announcement we’ve been looking forward to making for some time this year. We’ve been working flat out these past few months to make it happen and to do it right: the Broadband Forum is finally here!
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…
Zimbabwean internet providers relying on the onward fibre connectivity of SEACOM and EASSy, two of Africa’s major undersea cables, are facing major problems delivering internet services to customers as the the two cables have been down for close to 4 days
As I spent time in the darkness waiting for ZESA to restore power to my neighborhood; something that I have been doing for the past two weeks, I found myself with too much time on my hands.I started making a list of things that I would sell my first born to get in this country.…
The Herald reports today that the Government of Zimbabwe has raised the operating license fees for mobile network and fixed telephone operators from the current US $100 million to $180 million. The change comes as Econet Wireless and Telecel Zimbabwe prepare to renew their operating licenses in June this year.
It’s now March 2013, a whole year and 7 months after the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange website was taken down after a hacking incident. For a reason only the ZSE would know, it’s still down.
Econet Wireless customers will soon be able to borrow money from a facility set up at TN Bank by the cell phone company to buy high end smartphones and tablets. Customers will be able to upgrade their phones, which they can get from Econet Shops.
Telecel announced early today via an SMS to subscribers the reduction of its 3G modems price from US $45 to $30. Subscribers will also get 300mb of data along with a new modem. We’re told it’s a promotion, which means the deal has an expiry date.
Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), has released the December 2012 (4th quarter) mobile phone and fixed telephone subscribers statistics. According to statistics that we received from the regulator, Zimbabwe’s mobile penetration is now 97%, up from 85% in June 2012.
We’re just from a press conference where Econet Wireless and Stanbic Bank announced the integration of Econet’s mobile money transfer platform, EcoCash, with Stanbic’s banking system allowing EcoCash subscribers to transfer money from and to their Stanbic accounts. Selected branches of Stanbic will also act as EcoCash Super Agents allowing EcoCash agents and customers to…
While Free and Open Source Software owes its birth to the fact that people wanted an open source platform that they could modify, it owes its success to the fact that more often than not the software is given gratis. It is doubtful that people would have been drawn to Linux in droves if it…
A senior Econet Wireless executive, Mr Darlington Mandivenga, who is responsible for the rollout of EcoCash, has dismissed a claim reportedly made by Bankers Association of Zimbabwe’s immediate past president, Mr John Mushayavanhu, stating that Econet has denied banks access to its platform for integration.
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 the previous installment several suggestions were made on how to reduce bandwidth consumption on a capped connection. Whilst this article focused solely on PCs the rise in the use of smartphones has led to headaches as people try to manage data bundles on their smartphones and tablets. This is not helped by the fact…
If we lived in a perfect world, all of us would have an unlimited internet connection on which you could do anything from video conferencing, watching movies and playing internet games. Of course such a connection does exist – you could obtain one from a provider locally but you’d have to give them your first…
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…