A lot can change in a year – especially in Zimbabwe. In 2011 very few of Zimbabwe’s established brands seemed to have a presence on Facebook (Twitter “didn’t exist” yet). Today’s marketing landscape has significantly changed as a number of savvy brands finally understand how and why social media matters to their marketing mix.

A report today by financial news and analysis service FinX says the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe have proposed that mobile money services be included in new banking reforms for the country. This, the bankers say, would create a level playing field in an sector facing significant disruption from mobile phone operators.

So, what do you do if you’re a mobile operator and your customers have been clamouring all year about your mobile broadband tariffs being too high? Well, if you’re Econet you go ahead and reduce the price but you only make that reduction apply between 12 midnight and 5 AM. You also go ahead and limit it to customers buying data bundles.

SMS as we know it today, or rather as mobile network operators abuse it today, needs to go away. It’s so damn expensive. US 9 cents just to send 140 characters is undoubtedly the most costly means to communicate electronically today. And thankfully it is going away.

In what is certainly a first in the market locally, PowerTel is introducing weekly and biweekly uncapped internet packages. The move according to PowerTel marketing manager Willard Nyagwande, has been necessitated by the need to flexibly accommodate subscribers who just want to use the service product for a week or two. Such customers could for [...]

You’ve probably heard that Econet is trialing some ultra-low cost voice rates for its Buddie customers. It’s true. A new – but not yet launched officially – Econet voice promo called Buddie Zone is giving subscribers tariff discounts of up to 80% on voice calls even during peak time. We tried contacting the Econet PR [...]

There are two main problems facing anyone who wants to conduct business online,  namely: Payments and Distribution. The payment problem When one needs to make online transactions, they must to have a MasterCard/Visa card or PayPal, or any other method of online payment.  None of these are easy to come by for the majority of internet [...]

Just days after Zimbabwe’s ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa declared he would crack the whip on Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in the country for poor service delivery, POTRAZ, the telecoms regulatory body, has revealed that it’s currently unable to measure the networks’ quality of service (QoS). The revelations were made this week in an article published [...]

Just under two weeks after Telecel announced its question & answer vas promo, Econet has followed with its own. The Econet announcement was made on the company’s Facebook page on Monday this week but we’re told it was launched on 19 September. The competition is similar to Telecel’s; basically a subscriber opts into the service and [...]

Zimbabwe’s telecommunications regulator, POTRAZ, has released the June 2012 (2nd quarter) mobile phone and fixed line subscribers statistics. The stats, which were published in the state owned daily, The Herald, today, show that Zimbabwe’s tele-density increased from 81.5% in the year’s first quarter to 89.9% in the second quarter. This is a significant jump and [...]

“The honeymoon is over for the mobile operators!” These were the words of the Minister of ICT in Zimbabwe, Nelson Chamisa, at a function held alongside this year’s ICT Africa in Harare yesterday. Chamisa decried the current poor state of the mobile phone network services in Zimbabwe promising to rectify the situation. He said that [...]

This article is by Jabulani Chirinda, who describes himself as “A technology enthusiast, entrepreneur, Google services platinum user.” Chirinda Studied applied physics at NUST, and is currently pursuing a degree in Telecommunications with a university in Zimbabwe. He’s passionate about mobile technology, social media, digital photography and space technology. Married and have a daughter. Over the past [...]

Last week’s light jab at its fighting rivals wasn’t enough for Telecel. They’re not done yet taking optimum advantage of the situation. In a more settled and deeper response to the goings on with Econet and NetOne, Telecel statements in the print press attributed to the CEO Francis Mawindi, essentially offer that the company would [...]

Reports on yesterday’s High Court hearing on the interconnection dispute between Econet and NetOne say the two mobile operators made a “draft consent order” yesterday in which Econet agreed to resume interconnection services with NetOne pending the main hearing on the matter. The date of the hearing will be set after Econet files its arguments [...]

Last month, when Econet Wireless chief executive, Douglas Mboweni, appeared before a parliamentary committee on Media, Information and Communication Technology on ICT, he reportedly disclosed that Econet is owed a whopping US $85 million by NetOne and TelOne in interconnection fees. Last week when Econet decided to terminate interconnection with NetOne it cited $20.4 million as [...]