We have an exclusive with Innscor on Wi-Fi, Liquid & ZOL clarify. Liquid opens up to resellers

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar

When we have written about TelOne’s Wi-Fi deal with Innscor, in recent weeks, ZOL leadership has made a point to make it clear to us that they actually have an exclusive Wi-Fi deal with Innscor and that it’s been in place for a while now.

An article in the Herald today suggests ZOL via its parent company, Liquid Telecom Zimbabwe, is now on a PR campaign to make it clear which Wi-Fi network in Zimbabwe is the largest. Titled “Liquid Telecoms establishes 200 Wi-Fi hotspots“,  a large part of the article is dedicated to clarifying the deal with Innscor. A manager at the company is quoted:

ZOL Zimbabwe is the sole distributor of Wi-Fi hotspots to several Innscor outlets. One of the most interesting Wi-Fi partnerships would be the presence of Liquid Telecom at all Innscor Fastfoods premises/outlets and these consist of Chicken Inn, Creamy Inn, Bakers Inn and Pizza Inn. This deal has revolutionized food consumption as Wi-Fi consumption has become the driving force behind food consumption

It’s just PR hyperbole ofcourse to use the word “revolutionized” and to refer to Wi-Fi as the driving force behind food consumption at the Innscor outlets, but we find it interesting that there’s something noteworthy that Liquid is seeing  (and hopefully Innscor are seeing at as well), however small. Just less than 2 weeks ago, we made a case for Innscor branded Wi-Fi and if Wi-Fi is the strong driver of food consumption that Liquid would like the market to believe, Innscor would be best advised to have some kind of control over it.

Interestingly, the Liquid article actually suggests the company is open to white-labelling it’s Wi-Fi service:

Liquid Telecom Wi-Fi is not only limited to public Hotspots as distributed through ZOLspots. With the coming of the infrastructure sharing legislature, the Liquid Wi-Fi is carrier grade hence enabling it to support other service providers who want to ride on the infrastructure to distribute their Wi-Fi service to their clients as Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)

Liquid Telecom is clearly happy to play in the background. It’s brilliant ofcourse for a carrier of carriers. But Wi-Fi being the commodity it is now seeing the competition have as much fibre internet to shopping centers and malls as Liquid has, they’d need to find ways to make themselves not easily replaceable.

4 comments

  1. macd chip

    I think Liquid Tel is playing very well and they should continue to be best player in the background.

    My Zol Wimax was only working towards monthend, and l used to phone their tech support until l gave up.
    I knew their uplink provider was Liquid Tel but clearly they have issues at the handshake network.

    I was a bit sceptical when l moved to Yo Africa when they told me that their uplink provider is Liquid Tel.
    They proved me wrong, Yo!Africa is the fastest internet l have ever had in Zim.

    In summary, Zol is crap now and they do not know their network at all whilst YoAfrica is brilliant on same Liquid infrastructure.

    If Liquid is now allowing branding, thats a killer punch which Zim internet needs.

  2. Good story

    Funny enough Innscor does not even allow you to use your laptop within their premises…

  3. Allaz

    Well if their Innscor deal is so “exclusive” then they might wanna have a look at the TelOne website – it has a banner there with Innscor logos all over it!

  4. Amused

    Love-dat-TelOne http://www.telone.co.zw/
    Well if this is exclusivity… then the word means different things to each one of us…

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