
Brodacom Brand and PR Manager, Prosper Mutswiri, presenting the 'talking modem'
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 more exciting announcement from the company; Brodacom now offers unlimited calls within the network for US $15 a month.
$15 translates to about 50 cents a day for unlimited calls to any Brodacom number. It’s the first eat-all-you-can voice package on the market and one to set the competition rethinking their pricing. The company came to the market with the slogan “the game’s just changed” and it seems they may have a shot at changing the game here.
But the offering has a condition. It is that you buy and use the ‘talking modem’ to access the voice deal. The modem itself is priced at US $49. In addition to that, considering the deal is only accessible when you call other Brodacom numbers, you may actually need to buy two of these, one for you and the other for the person you intend to call often enough for such a deal to make sense. The other phone will also need to pay $15 a month so it can call you back.
There’s also the limitation enforced by the fact the Brodacom hasn’t interconnected yet to the state owned telecoms operators in Zimbabwe, NetOne and TelOne. Brodacom executives at the event said they will be interconnecting soon explaining that the process has already started. It’s not clear when ‘soon’ will be, and this may make some prospective customers not want to migrate yet.
Calling other networks from Brodacom remains 12 cents per minute, about half the rate the incumbent GSM operators in Zimbabwe (Econet, NetOne and Telecel) charge.






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