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Ecoweb To Launch Mobile WiMax In April
Ever since Ecoweb announced the coming launch of mobile WiMax last year in October, we’ve been waiting eagerly here at Techzim for further announcements and possibly, a launch date. This didn’t come until last week when Ecoweb finally said something through their Econet investor relations page. Ecoweb, a wholly owned subsidiary of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe…
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Econet Reduces Mobile Line Sim Cards To US$2
Econet announced today the reduction of its mobile line’s price from US$5 to US$2. The US$2 includes airtime worth a dollar. This follows a similar move by its closest competitor, Telecel Zimbabwe, about 2 months ago. Adverts by Econet in the local press today urge customers to act now as ‘offer’ is only “valid while…
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When Solar Meets Wireless – A Rural Telecommunications Solution
Recently the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) made an announcement that it had committed US$24 million from the Universal Services Fund (USF) for implementing eight projects in the rural areas. No specifics as to which telecoms operators had been tasked to carry out the rural network outreach programs. Also no specific areas…
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Telecel Launches ‘Mega Juice Card’, Subscribers Get US $2 Bonus Time For Every $1
Telecel Zimbabwe launched a new promotion dubbed ‘Mega Juice’, at the weekend. The new Mega Juice card, which costs US $1, gives the subscriber $2 bonus air time, effectively giving away three dollars worth of air time for the price a dollar. The Mega Juice air time however is only valid for 24 hours from…
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Weekly Roundup – 27 March 2010
Telecel Zimbabwe Shareholding The Fingaz on Thursday revealed a new twist to the Telecel Zimbabwe shareholding question. Apparently Telecel International may have to cede more than just 11% shareholding to local entrepreneurs. Telecel International agreed to a POTRAZ requirement in 2007 to give up 20% of its 60% shareholding but it didn’t. Depending on how…
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Of Econet’s Liquid Telecom Fibre And Harare’s ‘Digital Revolution’
An article about the Econet metro fibre network in The Standard last week, had the following takeaway: IMAGINE Harare, in its dilapidated state, being the most digitalised city in the world. To many, this may sound too far-fetched but for Liquid Telecom, a subsidiary of Econet and Harare Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda it is only a…
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Canonical Releases Beta 1 Of Ubuntu 10.04
Canonical released Beta 1 of Ubuntu 10.04 today. The latest version of the OS that brought Linux to the people is scheduled to be released on the 29th of April. It’s a long term support (LTS) release, and this time named after a cat, ‘Lucid Lynx’. The Zimbabwe loco team has been active the past…
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Chips Computing Services Wins Best Achiever Award For X3 ERP
Chips Computing Services has won the Best Achiever Award for Sage Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) X3, barely a year after the product was launched in Zimbabwe. Chips Computing Services, which holds the Sage Pastel franchise in Zimbabwe and is the official distributor of Sage and Pastel products, won the award, which is based on sales,…
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Weekly Roundup – 20 March 2010
PowerTel and the BTC Fibre Deal There was an article in this week’s Sunday Mail on PowerTel’s fibre deal with Botswana Telecommunications Corporation. Again no mention of the bandwidth capacity being purchased. We searched around and found this pdf on the BTC website. It says “…under the agreement with BTC will get access to direct…
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Econet Slashes Off-Peak Calling Rates To 10 cents
Ok. The good news first: Starting this week, Econet has slashed its off-peak calling rates to just 10 cents. Off-peak here refers to 10PM to 6AM everyday. The not so good news:…
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Egypt, South Africa And Nigeria Account For More Than 80% Of Google Code Jam Africa Qualifying Contestants
The first round of the Google Code Jam Africa 2010 is over. Of the 54 countries in Africa, only 18 made it through the qualification round of Code Jam Africa 2010 and of these, only 3 countries accounted for more than 80% of the contestants; Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria. This is despite there being…
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A Google Map of ZOL Wi-Fi Hotspots in Harare
We thought we’d do a map of all the Wi-Fi hotspots in Zimbabwe to help people locate the nearest hotspot from any location. We started with the ISP that has a good number of them dotted across the country, ZOL. Because of that, this is by no means exhaustive. There are more hotspots in Zimbabwe…
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Econet Asks: Should We Have Waited Until We Could Give Everyone 3G Or We Did The Right Thing To Launch And Sort Out Issues Later?
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe is among the few companies in Zimbabwe to embrace online social media. The company’s 3G Facebook page has about a thousand fans and it gets updated several times a week. For subscribers, this provides an always available face of the company on the Internet. You can have conversation with an Econet techie…
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Weekly Roundup – 5 March 2010
Econet held a breakfast meeting today to give an update to stakeholders on the network upgrade project that has been taking place since last year. We’ll give you an update of the discussions held once we have something.
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Why Google Produces The Most Relevant Search Results
Like many people, for a long time now, Google has been my default search engine. This default state of my online experience makes it easy to forget that there are other options out there; that I could look at the web through a different set of lenses. And that indeed, there might actually be a…
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IT BEGINS WITH YOU: Positioning ICT Departments As A Valuable Strategic Asset.
The issue of aligning ICTs and business processes and goals has been the subject of many discussions and debates. I felt the need to relate the issue to our own Zimbabwean situation as we are equally or in a worse position than those that are making the loudest debates. It is not clear to me…
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Broken Promises: Broadlands Networks And Blades of Uncovered Grass
On November 30 2009, we posted an article titled “Ambitious New Telecoms Operator, Broadlands Networks”. In the article, we expressed our reservations on some (now) clearly overambitious statements made by Broadlands Networks CEO, Chemist Siziba in a local weekly paper. Then, Broadlands promised that there’d be “…no blade of grass that we will not cover…
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No Love For G-Tide Phones On Facebook
I received a page suggestion yesterday to a not so usual Zimba page on Facebook. One that doesn’t hide it’s feelings for G-Tide. It’s called “I Hate G-TIDE Cell Phones”. First I thought well, negative campaigns are not new on Facebook but I’ll just check it out and leave. But then I looked at the…
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Chamisa To Launch The National ICT Strategic Plan Next Week
The Zimbabwe Minister of ICT, Nelson Chamisa, will on 22 February launch the national ICT strategic plan for the period 2010 to 2014. The launch will take place at Jameson Hotel in Harare at 1400hrs local time. The ICT strategic plan was approved last month and is expect to be a guideline for the country…
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ZOL Says “Stop Waiting For Promised 3G Connections – Connect Today To Wireless Broadband.”
In obvious reference to Econet’s delayed full rollout of data services to mobile, subscribers Zimbabwe Online (ZOL) is telling customers they don’t have to wait – we have great wireless broadband spread across the country and it is available right now! The message was sent out in a promotional email to customers titled “Introducing ZOLspot…