Posted inHardware & Software
Posted inConnectivity
TrustCo suspends journalists over Econet stories
A Namibian publication reported today that Trustco Holdings has suspended (without pay) two journalists working for a newspaper it owns called Informanté. The suspensions have been handed out to the two following a story carried by the newspaper concerning the fallout between Trustco Mobile and Econet Wireless Zimbabwe.
Posted inBroadband Connectivity
In depth focus: Zimbabwe needs to embrace cloud computing
Information management has never been as hot a subject as it is today. In such a context cloud computing is revolutionising the way the world operates by reducing costs, risks and exponentially scaling capabilities.
Posted inBroadband Connectivity
Dotmore: Telone’s branded broadband services unmasked
A big blue dot has ‘graced’ local papers over the past month with nothing more than a coming soon tagline. Yesterday’s Sunday Mail finally unmasked the dot that had aroused a lot of curiosity, it seems that even non techies we spoke to were trying to figure out its identity. Dotmore is TelOne’s branded offering for broadband.
Posted inConnectivity
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.
Posted inConnectivity
Global roundup – this week’s top stories
Nokia releases N9
On 21 June, Nokia released its latest MeeGo-based smartphone, the N9. The N9 is Nokia’s first pure touch smartphone and it runs on Meego 1.2. The phone spots a curved glass 3.9 inch AMOLED display, a 8megapixel camera and comes with storage capacities of 16GB and 64GB.
Posted inConnectivity
SEACOM: Mozambique agrees to Zim connection
Zimbabwe is poised to benefit from a deal announced yesterday between SEACOM and Telecomunicacoes de Mocambique (TDM), Mozambique’s telecoms parastatal. The company has been granted the go ahead to connect our landlocked country to the undersea cable. This is expected to have a positive impact on corporate and individual consumers in the not too distant future.
Posted inConnectivity
ForgetMeNot Africa offers free SMS service to Econet numbers
No sooner had we posted the article (and our thoughts) on Free SMS Zimbabwe yesterday than we got pointed to a free SMS service by ForgetMeNot Africa (FMNA). The service is called Dasuba. It’s still in Beta for now but it’s available to anyone with access to the web. Just go to www.dasuba.com to give it a try. Currently though, you can only send messages to Econet.
Posted inConnectivity
Ubuntu: Downloading YouTube videos
One of the good things about the good old Firefox 3 was that when in Ubuntu flash videos were downloaded to the /tmp directory. All you had to do was wait for the buffering to complete, minimize the Firefox window, got to the /tmp directory and copy and paste the video into the folder of your choosing. Playing the video is easy enough; vlc plays pretty much any format from .mp4 to .flv.
Posted inConnectivity
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.
Posted inConnectivity Startups
Free SMS Zimbabwe launches. Our brief take on it
How would you like using the internet to send free SMSs that have adverts appended? Something like “How are you Sumba? – Send money to Zimbabwe with ABC Zim Ltd,www.abczimltd.com”. Really, we would love to know, please comment below. In the meantime, here’s more about the this new service.
Posted inConnectivity
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 their customers.
Posted inMiscellaneous
Econet Energy: Well placed to power Southern Africa
Renewable energy is a sector on flux. Global greats like Google have risen to the challenges imposed by global warming and rising demand for energy through investments in sustainable power sources. Solar City is one such company that has benefitted from the energy race; Google has invested $280 million so far in the company. For the sake of continuity let’s think of Econet as our local equivalent of a Google of sorts; in such a scenario Econet Energy has a very solid shot at becoming a regional energy titan.
Posted inBroadband
Ubuntu and choosing your Zim ISP
In my previous article I mentioned the fact that Ubuntu is not much fun without the Internet. It has been my experience that not all Internet Service Providers (ISP) are the same and that there are some caveats for a Zimbabwean Ubuntu user/administrator when it comes to either choosing an ISP or administering his system especially in the matter of upgrades and downloads and indeed sometimes this is critical if your system will get connected to the internet at all.
Posted inMiscellaneous
The TrustCo side of the story. TrustCo to protect its intellectual property rights
Since TrustCo terminated the Econet agreement some 2 weeks ago, TrustCo hadn’t spoken about the issue. It is Econet Chairman, Tawanda Nyambirai, who gave the Econet side of the story which basically amounted to: TrustCo demanded more money than was due to them, spammed Econet subscribers, threatened to terminate the agreement when Econet complained about all this and when Econet called their buff, they backed out but Econet wouldn’t have it.
Posted inConnectivity
Powertel headhunts for troops
A big vacancy ad from Powertel appeared in yesterday’s Sunday Mail, by the looks of it the company is bolstering its forces for a major onslaught. In these interesting of times, Powertel regrets the major advances enemy camps have gained at its expense.
Posted inBroadband
Pictures: Africom’s new services, CDMA mobile phones and other gadgets
Last week, we got an opportunity to visit the Africom head office in Harare. Africom staff showed us some of the gadgets that the telecoms operator is promoting as part of the roll out of the new voice and data services. The gadgets are available for sale at the Africom shops and the company says it is working to establish reseller partnership with independent retailers in the country. We took a few photos of the gadgets. Here are the pictures:
Posted inBroadband
Econet, POTRAZ, and the regulation of BlackBerry services in Zimbabwe
At the end of March this year, we reported that Econet’s intention to launch BlackBerry services had attracted the interest of the government. This we observed in an article in a state owned weekly newspaper, The Sunday Mail. Yesterday, the Sunday Mail had another report on the matter. This time the paper reports that the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has banned Econet from using BlackBerry services until it gets a license for the services.
Posted inConnectivity
Global roundup – this week’s top stories
Part of our objective as Techzim is to provide our readers with relevant local and regional tech information. We believe this is what sets us apart as an information source. In addition, we have decided to start providing a summary of global tech news once at the end of each week. Starting today, we will pick a selection of significant global tech stories that catch our attention and post a brief summary here. We hope it increases the value of content and starts some discussion on global tech issues.
Posted inConnectivity
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 this actually is the case. Well, partly.
Posted inBroadband
The infamous pirate Jack Sparrow plagues local ISPs
It feels like yesterday when l was starting up an experiential marketing business. One of my clients was Ster Kinekor Theatres. I vividly remember the regional GM regularly flying into Zim for reconnaissance meetings; each time we ran through the SWOT analysis one bugger kept popping up! Ster Kinekor HQ (South Africa) placed a bounty on this bugger by bringing in SAFACT (Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft) but it seemed like no one gave a hoot locally. After carrying out a research survey we ‘discovered’ that approximately 60% of our market were buying movies on the street, at Avondale or the Village flee market…Those were interesting times…it appears as if they’ve taken a new twist.
