Africom in aggressive network expansion

Brian Gondo Avatar

In a sign of the increasing excitement in  Zimbabwe’s Internet industry, news reaching us is that Africom is aggressively expanding their network. Africom a major player in Zimbabwe’s telecoms industry offers voice and data (fixed and mobile) products using the wireless CDMA EV-DO Revision A standard.

The company whose roots are in the enterprise sector has in recent times been making an aggressive push for customers in the retail space. Africom executive Rudo Mudavanhu indicated that her company has recently added base stations in Beitbridge, Gweru, Kwekwe, Kadoma and Norton and was working around the clock to expand coverage to Masvingo, Kariba, Victoria Falls, Hwange and Dangamvura suburb in Mutare.

An Africom source who declined to be identified indicated that in Masvingo the company is acquiring sites for base stations and finalising approval from property owners. Once this process was complete market activation would happen fairly quickly. He further noted that the presence of backhaul providers Liquid Telecom and Telone in the town would expedite service delivery. In towns along the Harare to Mutare corridor base stations were already in place and Africom is waiting upon the backhaul providers to finalise their work.

Harare is also benefiting from this network investment and has seen capacity upgrades in the CBD, Avondale and Mt Pleasant in an effort to support the increase in usage by customers. Coverage in Harare is also being expanded to Kamfinsa, Kuwadzana, Hatfield, Hatcliffe and Chitungwiza.

Mudavanhu indicated that overall the expansion of Africom’s footprint will assist the company in offering their range of products “to greater demographics and also to keep our service quality excellent in areas with greater usage”.

Zimbabwe’s Internet space is now marked by exciting developments among the industry players that has seen significant network expansion being undertaken by PowerTel, ZOL offering new fibre packages (which may soon be expanded to other parts of Harare) and Utande launching their WiMAX broadband service uMAX.

12 comments

  1. KuraiMGT

    Wasara Wasara! more coverage more choice to the consumer

  2. Chiko Mukwenha

    This is great news, competition keeps you up at night 🙂

    Love it how most of the companies have started broad expansion almost all at the same time, no one’s that much ahead to exhibit monopolistic tendencies so there’s a great future I presume, in terms of competitive, cheaper products to consumers. One hopes all of these guys can get a good bite and keep the pressure on each other.

  3. Gingseng

    Good that they are covering the whole nation.

  4. Great

    Wishing AfriCom all the best…I use powertel and since it uses the same technology as Africom I thought that all these EVDO services were rubbish and flakey…but that all changed when I went to a friends house and used his Africom wireless/modem thing that blew me away!…I managed to download a 1gig movie in a little over 2 hours..and this wasnt even at night but during the day!

    1. JamesM

      1 gig in 2 hours with Africom? Somehow I doubt that, I dumped Africom months ago after their internet service had deteriorated to pathetic levels. I wonder if there’s anyone else who can confirm that kind of speed!

      1. Lets fix it

        @975d4e81e739d9fdb6006fdb91c7c7e1:disqus please advice which location (area) you where using the service from.

  5. lurker133

    Still nothing in Plumtree… :,(

    1. KuraiMGT

      nothing too in Chipinge 🙂

  6. thomas

    I for one have been using an HTC Evo 4G handset and I can confirm that is faster and better than when I was on powertel, and the tarriffs ensure that i truely get the smartphone expirience something which is rare with GSM tarrifs.

    1. Rayan

      What we do thought not wearing
      Rayan tharupidikall house you come science hope you his father’s hand but does Hotel is Lalu and do you time is not working what will you do you go you go to school okay bye school

  7. lalala

    africom has good coverage! 😀

  8. Gtide

    “when I went to a friends house and used his Africom wireless/modem thing that blew me away!…I managed to download a 1gig movie in a little over 2 hours..and this wasnt even at night but during the day!”
    In SA you can download a 1GB movie in less that 5minutes pheew talk of moving with technology

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