Posted inConnectivity

Press Release: Telecel wins ZIM Customer Service Excellence Award

Telecel Zimbabwe has been presented with the Zimbabwe Institute of Management’s 2010 Customer Service Excellence Award, in recognition of its leadership in customer care. Managing director Aimable Mpore was presented with the award at the institute’s Manager of the Year Awards ceremony in Harare on Friday last week (29 April).
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Twitter bird
Posted inConnectivity

Twitter not Zimbabwe’s favourite social media network

There's one thing that’s easy to see about Twitter and Zimbabweans; Zimbabweans just don’t tweet. I’m not talking about Zimbabweans in the Diaspora here. Adoption of these web communication tools for Zimbabweans outside the country seems just as hasty as the Americans, Britons and South Africans. I’m talking about Zimbabweans living in Zimbabwe.
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Econet Unavailable
Posted inConnectivity

Econet websites unavailable unless you’re using an Econet connection

We use Mweb (now iWayAfrica) for our primary internet connection at the office. I have 3 mobile broadband dongles from Africom, Telecel and Econet, which I use in order of the most affordable and usable at any given time. Now the problem with Econet sites is that, unless I’m using the Econet dongle, I cannot open them.
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Ubuntu
Posted inConnectivity

Canonical releases new Ubuntu version named Natty Narwhal

Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu operating system, released a new version of the popular open source operating system last week. This latest version, named ‘Natty Narwhal’, comes with some changes including a move from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice as the default office suite and a new desktop environment called Unity which, until now, was only used on the Netbook edition. The Ubuntu netbook edition itself has been merged with the desktop edition.
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YouTube
Posted inConnectivity

Rwandan President to take questions on YouTube

Paul Kagame, the sitting president of Rwanda, will this month be on YouTube to answer questions from internet users. The interview is organized by YouTube World View, a YouTube project featuring a series of monthly interviews with the world's foremost leaders.
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Spiritage CEO Zachary Wazara
Posted inBroadband

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 talked to in recent months, today was the first time we felt we were at a company that’s set to take on the big incumbents head-on and possibly redefine Zimbabwe’s telecoms industry going forward.
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South Africa Undersea Cables
Posted inBroadband

5.12 Terabits WACS undersea cable lands in Cape Town

Today, the West African Cable Systems (WACS), arrived at the shores of Cape Town in South Africa. The cable connects to the United Kingdom through the West African coast where it has 11 connection points in the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, the DRC, Angola and Namibia.
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Posted inConnectivity

23rd Century Systems subsidiary developing VAS platform

Uniswitch, a Twenty Third Century Systems Group (TTCS) subsidiary, is working on a VAS platform to be launched in the coming months. According to Uniswitch Managing Director, Reginald Gumbo, this is part of Uniswitch’s long terms strategic direction of developing mobile commerce solutions for the market.
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Posted inConnectivity

Telecel introduces convenient way for subscribers to register disconnected lines

As you may know, the POTRAZ deadline for mobile phone subscribers to register sim cards expired (for the third and final time) at the end of March. Some subscribers have already reported disconnections and some, despite being given a whole year to register, are not amused at all. Most are claiming they registered but still found themselves disconnected. In answer to this, Telecel has come up with some convenient way to activate disconnected lines.
Mapping in Kenya
Posted inConnectivity

Create the web you want!

There is an Nokia Advert that I loved and the tagline was something to the effect that the “new internet” was being created by hand, alluding to the fact that the social media phenomenon was contingent on a plethora of user submitted content experiences, be they YouTube videos or location service meta-data.
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Android Developer Challenge
Posted inConnectivity

You’re an Android Developer? Here’s a chance to win US$25,000 from Google

Today, Google unveiled the “Android Developer Challenge”, a contest for developers in Sub-Saharan Africa to develop mobile applications for the Google Android platform. The competition is open to people residing in all Sub-Saharan African countries excluding Sudan. We are not sure why Sudan is being left out here. It runs until the 1st of July this year.
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Posted inBroadband

How cheap can a voice call get? Valley Technologies might set new standard

Last week we ran an article titled “Africom and Valley Technologies to launch mobile phone networks”. In it we said that the two Internet Access Providers will be launching networks in the coming months and that they are currently conducting tests and finalizing interconnection with other telecoms providers.
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Posted inMobile Money

Using airtime as currency

Given our country’s limitations in payment systems, especially web based ones, I have encountered a number of entrepreneurs that have talked about developing solutions that enable users to pay for goods and services using their mobile phone airtime.
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