• Zellco entrepreneur launches Contravase. To sell mobile phones & Econet services

    A new company called Contravase has emerged in Zellco place. According to communication received from Big Chitima, the entrepreneur behind the company, Contravase has taken over Zellco’s assets and distribution network.

  • PowerTel to launch mobile voice services, web hosting

    PowerTel Communications, the state owned subsidiary of national power company, ZESA, is set to launch mobile voice services on its network. PowerTel sales and marketing manager, Willard Nyagwande made the announcement at a function in Harare yesterday.

  • Indian telecoms firm, MTNL, negotiating for a 51% stake in TelOne

    Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), an Indian state owned telecoms firm, is reportedly considering acquiring a stake in TelOne. An Indian publication, The Economic Times revealed today that MTNL is eying a 51% stake in Zimbabwe’s sole fixed line operator.

  • Econet chairman: Cut us some slack, we’re doing the best we can

    Econet had an AGM on Friday which brought out very interesting information, Newsday has a story on this. For starters NetOne and TelOne reportedly owe a collective $70million; the said debt has been outstanding for a while now such that Econet has approached government to assist with recovering it. TelOne is acknowledged as admitting its…

  • Western Union introduces domestic money transfer

    Techzim has just found out that Western Union has been offering a domestic money transfer service since the 16th of May 2011. It appears as if not enough PR work was done in this regard as even an online search did not yield any information. The money transfer service enables locals to send and receive…

  • Spiritage Introduces Brodacom; Mobile voice telephony and 4G Internet

    Today, Spiritage Group introduced Brodacom, its new company that will offer new voice telephony and broadband internet services. A teaser advert appeared in the local papers yesterday and we incorrectly attributed the new services to Valley Technologies, a Spiritage owned internet access provider. And as we have learned today, the services are actually under the…

  • Africom quietly interconnects with Econet

    When Africom launched its mobile phone service last month, it conspicuously lacked one thing any mobile operator needs to offer voice – Interconnection to other operators. The company only had live interconnection to the country’s smallest mobile operator (by number of subscribers), Telecel. The interconnection deal that matters most, the Econet one, wasn’t done yet.

  • Zimbabwe’s current mobile user base (June 2011). Telecel now third

    We’ve just received the updated POTRAZ statics of Zimbabwe mobile subscribers. We are told the figures have just been updated this past week and represent the statistics for the second quarter of the year.

  • Africa’s Telecoms Titans: MTN Group

    Africa’s Telecoms Titans is a series by Techzim profiling the top 20 leading mobile operators on the continent. Each segment focuses on a specific mobile operator with insights into services provided including marketing and technical competencies.

  • Econet, only mobile operator using Facebook to engage customers

    Facebook is just one of those platforms that a lot of internet users spend their time on. The platform (and other social media websites) has long been recognised as a business platform that companies can use to interface with consumers. Some local brands have successfully used the platform to communicate and stay in constant touch…

  • Africom yet to finalise interconnection, focus is on business customers

    When we posted the article about Africom’s very low voice tariffs last week, one of the readers commenting on the article expressed doubt that the Africom network has interconnection with the other voice networks (Econet, Telecel, NetOne and TelOne) to allow subscribers to make off-net calls. This week, we visited Africom and sadly found out…

  • Africom rolls out voice, more choice and very low price

    As you probably know already, Africom started an ad campagin for the launch of mobile telephony and some new data services last week. The full message of the availability of mobile telephony and the additional data services was made earlier this week. This morning, Africom sent us the tariffs for the new services.

  • Broadlands narrowing in on 5G?

    Going over reports from the ICT global conference held in Harare last week, we came across something that made us stop. It’s a report published by “The Zimbabwean” that basically says Broadlands Networks is preparing to launch a 5G network. Here’s an extract from the report:

  • Some 1.8 million Econet subscribers use mobile broadband

    At the “Thinking Global” ICT conference held in Harare two days ago, Econet disclosed the number of subscribers using mobile broadband internet services on its network. That number is a staggering 1.8 million. Staggering because that’s more than 30% of the total Econet subscribers (5,500,000).

  • Gigatel launches new VSAT hub in Zimbabwe

    Gigatel, the company we wrote about in September last year when it launched VoIP services, has launched a new V-SAT hub in Zimbabwe. The new hub is a Shiron product and operates on C-Band frequencies. It was supplied and engineered by Gilat Satcom, a global satellite communications provider. The announcement was made through a press…

  • Zimbabwe’s telecoms industry revenue to grow to US1.34 billion by 2016

    According to a market research report released today by global research firm, Frost & Sullivan, Zimbabwe’s mobile communications revenue will reach US $ 1.3 billion by 2016, with 20.1% compound annual growth rate. The report comes after Econet, Zimbabwe’s largest telecoms firm, released its year end financials showing solid growth and annual revenue of half…

  • Econet fixes website access issue. Our thoughts on customer support

    Last week, we complained that we couldn’t connect to the Econet websites unless we used an Econet Internet connection. We don’t use Econet for Internet at the office and we write about the mobile operator regularly so you can understand how it affected us. We were also not happy that this had gone on for…

  • Valley Technologies, a possible game changer for Zimbabwe’s telecoms industry

    Today, we spent the better part of the morning at the Spiritage network operation center in Harare. We were invited along with a dozen other writers from the various media houses in Zimbabwe to a “pre-launch media briefing” of the business group. First, let me say of all the Zim internet access providers (IAPs) we’ve…

  • Africom and Valley Technologies to launch mobile phone networks

    News tips we’re getting are all suggesting strongly that Internet Access Providers (IAPs), Africom and Valley Technologies will be launching mobile phone networks soon. “Soon” here could ofcourse mean anything from a couple of weeks (at best) to a few months. We’re guessing, from what we know so far, the most would be 2 months.

  • TelOne’s fibre connection on EASSy now live, total 2.48 Gbps lit

    The Harare-Mozambique TelOne backbone fibre is now live. The state owned fixed telecoms operator has announced that the cable now links the state owned fixed operator to the East African Submarine System (EASSy) undersea cable through Mozambique. TelOne has taken up initial capacity of 2.48 Gbps (16 x STM-1s) and according to the company the…

  • Econet warns subscribers of disconnections as registration grace period expires

    When the mobile registration deadline expired last month, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) conceded to a one month grace period before mobile operators start disconnecting unregistered subscribers. The grace period expires tomorrow. As it approaches, Econet has started issuing warnings through the press to subscribers that come the end of the…

  • Mobile Value Added Services on a steady increase locally

    There’s a growing reappearance of value added services (VAS) on the local mobile networks. Entrepreneurs are seeing this and you can see the increasing number of adverts in the local press like the current itllusion mobiplay one which reads:

  • CABS, POSB to use Telecel mobile banking platform through Zimswitch Mobile

    Telecel Zimbabwe has just revealed to Techzim that it’s working with Zimswitch Mobile to include more banks on its mobile banking platform. Telecel launched the Skwama mobile banking services in January this year but only provided the service to subscribers banking with Zimbabwe’s Kingdom Bank.

  • Google launches Gmail SMS in more African countries

    Google has announced through its Google Africa blog that it has launched Gmail SMS in Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi. In Uganda Google is working with MTN, Uganda Telecom and Orange, in Tanzania with Vodacom and in Malawi with Airtel and TNM. Gmail SMS has been around for some time in Africa. The service is currently…

  • POTRAZ licenses Zimbabwe’s fourth mobile operator, TelOne

    The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has revealed through Zimbabwe’s state owned daily, the Herald, that it granted TelOne a GSM mobile phone license late last year. TelOne is Zimbabwe’s only fixed line operator and is owned by the government. TelOne becomes the country’s fourth mobile operator. The other three are Econet,…

  • Mobile operators to start disconnecting unregistered subscribers

    There’s been silence on what happens now that the registration deadline has expired. Emails to POTRAZ didn’t yield anything, and asking the mobile operators left us no closer to the answer. Only NetOne responded yesterday with “POTRAZ is yet to give us a clear position on what course of action to take now that we…

  • The Telecel side of the story: Indigenisation, Expats & Buying Zimbabwe

    Barely seconds after we posted the accusation by Telecel that NetOne won’t share infrastructure, a email from Telecel appeared in our inbox with a press release titled “Telecel MD gives evidence to parliamentary committee” attached. Telecel has been mainly silent on the issued leveled against them in the past few months but the appearance before…

  • Telecel reduces cost of calling other mobile networks

    In a release we just received, Telecel has announced that it is scrapping the extra cost of calling mobile numbers outside the Telecel network. Effectively, this means Telecel subscribes will now call NetOne and Econet numbers at the same rate they call Telecel numbers.

  • POTRAZ authorises mobile operators to start penalizing unregistered subscribers

    Zimbabwe’s telecoms regulator, POTRAZ, has authorised mobile operators in the country to start implementing some ‘restrictive measures’ on subscribers. This, according to POTRAZ, will force mobile subscribers to register their lines before the 28 February registration deadline.

  • Econet’s move into green energy, a welcome development for under-powered Africa

    We attended the launch of Econet Energy, a renewable energy initiative by Econet yesterday. Through the initiative Econet is making a move into solar energy in a bid to guarantee always-available power supply to its telecommunications infrastructure and subscribers.