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Africom too now offering unlimited calls, for $10 a month
In what will become the lowest priced voice call deal in Zimbabwe, Africom revealed today that the company is now offering unlimited calls for just $10 a month within the network. The revelation was made on the company’s new website that came online today. Africom’s follows hot on the heels of Brodacom’s almost similar announcement…
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Brodacom introduces unlimited calls for $15 a month
Yesterday, we attended a Brodacom event where the company announced some new services they will be offering. One new product presented, a gadget Brodacom calls a ‘talking modem’, is primarily a wireless internet modem, which really looks like a phone and that indeed can do voice calls. The ‘talking modem’ is the basis of a…
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Overview of fraud and revenue assurance in telecoms
In the broadest sense, fraud is “a criminal deception intended to gain money or personal advantage”. Fraud is a big problem for many businesses and can be of various types. Inaccurate credit applications, fraudulent transactions, identity thefts and false insurance claims are some examples of this problem.
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Aptics enters market with promise of affordable broadband and VoIP
About 2 weeks ago a new Internet Access Provider called Aptics started advertising VoIP telephony and ‘4G’ services in the local newspapers. We have tried the Aptics broadband internet before for our primary connection at the office, but then, the company was still providing services primarily through ISPs ZOL and Yo Africa. The company is…
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Aquiva Wireless to launch VoIP by April
One of Zimbabwe’s licensed Internet Access Providers (IAP), Aquiva Wireless, will be launching VoIP services by April this year. We got the news from the company this week that they are finalizing interconnection agreements with some of the existing mobile operators and the fixed line operator (TelOne) and will be launching VoIP commercially in the…
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Estimating the number of Facebook users in Zimbabwe
There has been a lot of curiosity about Zimbabwe’s Facebook population lately. Unfortunately Facebook doesn’t provide Zimbabwe’s Facebook stats because of, well, you guessed it, we’re a bad people. Or at least the targeted US sanctions say some leaders here are.
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Africom finally kills off the loss leading $18 bundle
In October 2010, Africom made a bold unprecedented move in the history of the internet in Zimbabwe. Fresh from the launch of its new red brand and mobile broadband services, the company announced the pricing of its data packages; the cost of a 1 gigabyte bundle was US $18. It was crazy. It was fantastic…
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Our information technology predictions for 2012
Another exciting year in information technologies lies ahead with a lot of promise for the continued growth of the sector. Below, we provide our thoughts on what we think 2012 holds. It would be great to know what you the reader think in the comments.
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Zimbabwe’s tele-density rises to 74.7%
Zimbabwe’s tele-density rose to 74.7% as 2011 came to a close. Mobile phone subscriber statistics we received from the Post and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) recently show that all mobile phone operators registered an increase in subscribers since the last release of stats in September 2011.
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The top Zimbabwe tech stories we covered in 2011
With less than two days left before the close of the year, we thought we’d post a listing of all the top stories we covered this year. This has been our busiest year since.
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Stimulating competition in telecoms with Mobile Number Portability
Dollar for three are the buzzwords for Telecel customers, which refers to Telecel’s popular mega-juice airtime top-up card which costs $1 but offers $3 worth of value, i.e. $1 allowing off-net calls, $1 bonus for on-net calls and a $1 data bundle worth 10MB. Tariff wise, Telecel offers a $0.23 rate across all networks. Compare…
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Dear Brodacom, please stop with these false claims already
If you’re in Zimbabwe and checked the newspapers yesterday, you probably saw the Brodacom advert above. The advert claims that before Brodacom came along, setting up fixed broadband in Zimbabwe used to cost US $3,500 and that thanks to Brodacom, that figure has been brought down to US $99.50, the price of Brodacom’s Wi-Fi device…
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A vote of confidence for Telecel
Orascom Telecom have ceased their fence sitting ways with Telecel Zimbabwe in a big way. The Independent reported on Friday that the company will pump in $70 million into Telecel Zimbabwe. This move is very significant for the company beyond monetary value as Vimpelcom (Orascom’s parent) has made a commitment to channel its global resources…
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Review: Brodacom mobile broadband internet
About two weeks ago, we received three mobile broadband (and one of them primarily a voice device as well) from the Spiritage Group company called Brodacom. We got the opportunity to test the three devices over about 6 days, which gave us a more or less clear picture of the performance. We tested the devices…
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POSB launches ZimSwitch Mobile powered mobile banking service
Back in march when news first broke that ZimSwitch was working with Telecel to power mobile banking for local banks, the two banks that Telecel confirmed they were working with were CABS and POSB. CABS launched its mobile banking service (branded textacash) in September. As for POSB, ZimSwitch told us exactly month ago the bank…
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Econet to spend 1 million Euro on broadband and voice optimisation
Mobile network monitoring and optimization solutions provider, Astellia, announced today that they have signed a EUR 1 million agreement with Econet Wireless Zimbabwe. According to the announcement, Econet will deploy an Astellia solution to monitor network performance for its mobile broadband and voice services and will also have a team of Astellia consultants to provide…
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Spiritage’s 4G Brodacom launch, a game changer?
Yesterday, Spiritage finally came out with huge adverts in the press claiming they have a modern 4G network. The “game’s just changed” shouts the advert! Has it?
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12 banks implementing ZimSwitch Mobile. Platform to be mobile network neutral
We met ZimSwitch business development manager Adam Roscoe this week to discuss the newly unveiled ZimSwitch Mobile platform. Roscoe disclosed in the interview that a total of 12 financial institutions […]
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Zimbabwe’s current mobile subscriber stats (September 2011)
We recently enquired from the Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) the 3rd quarter mobile subscriber statistics for Zimbabwe. The figures we are as follows:
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Econet to launch Eco-Cash tomorrow. No Bank Account. Cross Network.
Econet is launching Eco-Cash, its mobile money service, tomorrow. The launch will be held at the Rainbow Towers hotel in Harare. Econet unveiled earlier this month its plan to launch the service before the end of September. We have received some bits of information on what Eco-Cash will be.
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ZimSwitch to launch mobile banking platform this month
This week, we received communication from ZimSwitch that the ZimSwitch Mobile platform will be rolling out to the first wave of ‘ZimSwitch Ready’ banks this month and that more banks will follow “hot on their trails”.
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Tracking your vehicle, kids and more through SMS
Some weeks ago, two gentlemen from a company called Ingoma Telecom, came to our offices to show us a car tracking product they’re distributing in Zimbabwe. The product itself is called Tramigo and it’s manufactured by a Finland based company going by the same name. We have been using the device for about 2 weeks…
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Africom officially interconnects with Econet and TelOne
Today, Africom sent a message to its customers through SMS announcing that the Africom CDMA network is now officially interconnected with the Econet mobile network and the TelOne fixed line network. This in addition to the existing Telecel interconnection. Africom also took the opportunity to remind the market that making calls to other networks costs…
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We’ll hit 6 million subscribers by end of September, says Econet
When Econet announced yesterday that it is ready to launch its mobile money service, it also disclosed one interesting number. That number is 6 million. At the end of this month, Econet says it will cross the 6 million mark in mobile subscribers.
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TelOne is looking for a hundred million dollars, full stop
Back in March this year, Zimbabwe’s telecoms regulator, POTRAZ, revealed that it had granted TelOne the fourth GSM license in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean government now effectively has two GSM licenses as a result. The other is through NetOne. A GSM license is a treasured asset world over, more so in Africa where mobile telephony uptake…
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We have 3.9G technology, says Spiritage Communications
Speaking at a Computer Society of Zimbabwe function yesterday, Spiritage Communications Managing Director Mr. Kangai Maukazuva disclosed the company has deployed a 3.9G network. Maukazuva was presenting the topic “Communication technologies for the future” to a huge group of information technology professionals. The presentation centered on the evolution in telecommunications to next generation networks (NGNs).
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Of prophets, spiritual airtime, VAS and POTRAZ
We too saw last week’s story on spiritual recharge cards by a Zim church leader, Emmanuel Makandiwa. We too found the story somewhat confusing and were eager to find out more so we could write a short ‘explanation’ of how it works, technically. Yes, just the technical side of things; it’s not our place to…
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Telecel offers free data for every voice credit purchase
Recently, Telecel introduced a voice for data promotion. For every $1 worth of airtime purchased, subscribers receive $1 worth of data for free. The company has not yet rolled out […]