Telecel’s current stats: 2.5m mobile subscribers, 552k internet subscribers

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar

Telecel Zimbabwe Headquarters HarareTelecel Zimbabwe, one of the 4 licensed GSM mobile operators in Zimbabwe, informed us today that the company now has 2,582,000 active mobile subscribers against a total subscriber capacity of 3.7 million. The number of active subscribers (which is as at 31 December 2012) represents a 70% increase from the 1,520,000 subscribers the company had at the beginning of last year.

The company also disclosed that the total average monthly unique mobile broadband subscribers for December 2012 stood at 552 393.

Telecel says it hopes this year to increase the number of  base stations and increase its 3G footprint in selected strategic areas around the country especially in major urban centres, tourist resort areas and border towns. A spokesperson of the company also said they are targeting most of Zimbabwe’s highways in order to provide continuous road coverage. “We hope to end this financial year at about 3 850 000 total active subscribers,” said the spokesperson.

The Telecel spokesperson echoed the company’s stated goal last year of reaching 90% population coverage by the end of the year. To this end Telecel says it managed to put online a total of 157 new base stations in 2012. The base stations, said the spokesperson, are enabled for data services through GPRS or EDGE.

The information from Telecel comes just a day after Econet announced crossing the 8 million mark in active mobile subscribers.

12 comments

  1. HoneyABadger

    Well, telecel’s internet service is working fine for me so far, after having said bye-bye to africom. In this day-and-age data consumption is where telcos are raking in most of their profits. However, after having been to Namibia recently, their netman’s internet performance makes Zimbabwe look like we are still in the stone age; for a such a small country i.e.. They have whoosh internet speed that’s for sure. I was both impressed with Namibia but confounded by Zim’s lethargic overall communications infrastructure.

    1. Concern Shoko

      Don’t stress u r not the only one who under rate(d). I travel there regularly on business, staying for more than 3 weeks some times. All i can say is u can never compare Zim and Namibia. In most aspects, Zim is beaten all systems out by Namibia, and I always tell people that Zimbabwe has a lot to learn from Nam, including cleanliness. I am yet to see a paper flying in the streets on Windhoek, even the ghetto is spotlessly clean. The roads are awesome. I drove to Walvis bay and marveled at the beautiful country. No police asking for bribe on the road, the countryside is well preserved and beautiful….a sharp contrast with Zim. Their shops happily accept visa and master cards, crime is minimum, their networks are excellent, they have organised car rentals, excellent accommodation of all budgets. They have a functional gvt and are politically mature!

      And there u see some Zimbos bragging about this and that in Zim, u just hang ur head in shame and quickly forget whatever they said. The only thing i didnt like is the way their immigration treats black visitors! They are a bit on the racists side.

      TZ, sorry for going offside but i couldn’t miss this opportunity!

      1. Time

        “even the ghetto is spotlessly clean”…hahaha brilliant..

      2. lurker133

        Haha, you should work for their Tourism Office or something. Heck, even I want to check it out now!

        1. Concern Shoko

          hahaha, have no experience watsoever in Tourism (unless being a tourist counts)…but i would luv to pursue such a career when i finally get bored in IT…maybe in the next 10 or so years.

  2. Time

    I do have to commend Telecels 3G internet. I use it in my IPad and will never ever again touch econet for internet as they’re overpriced and when econet signal drops to Edge due to powercuts/location the internet becomes virtually unusable. However with Telecel you only notice a slight lag when in Edge only areas.

    1. STM

      sad, bcoz that means Telecel’s 3G has a poor throughput. If a transition from 3G to EDGE results in a slight lag, When EDGE, using MCS-9 can do a theoretical max of 59.2kbps per slot, average of 4 slots per user; gives 236.8kbps and 3G should do a max of 7.2Mbps. Anyway I wish people could post figures for the benefit of all. If a benchmark would be agreed upon like speedtest.net (as an example) it would make comparisons easier.

      This is a Tech platform not a commercial one where people use such terms as Broadacom’s “Real 4G speeds” or Africom’s “Faster than 3G speeds”

      1. Time

        I’ll upload a snapshot when Im at my Ipad again but I got 3Mbps up and 1.5 down on the telecel..econet peaked at 2.2Mbps. This was with 3g. On edge however…telecel 183kbps, econet…45kbps. So I dont think telecel has a poor throughput but you only notice a slight lag simple because its edge speeds are sufficient enough to load webpages reliably and quickly.

  3. purple

    I like telecel broadband. Its stable unlike econet. When I want to use my phone as a hot spot I find that using my telecel line is better than using the econet one. The HDSPA connection is more stable on Telecel than on Econet. And its cheaper on the pocket especially when buying big bundles.

    1. Time

      Indeed cheaper on the pocket…only if telecel offered these half price per mb during off peak hours like econet recently introduced…they’d certainly gain alot more data subscribers.

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