Last week, one of the most visible internet access providers in Zimbabwe, Africom, went to the press with an announcement that they had partnered MTN to “connect Zimbabwe to the rest of Africa and the world.” We found this mostly meaningless, because, well, Zimbabweans are already connected to the rest of Africa and the world [...]

Yesterday, Africom, an Internet Access Provider in Zimbabwe, had a supplement in one of the major weekly papers called Fingaz. Among the announcements in the paper, was an article with the title “Africom, MTN deliver African dream” that no doubt caught our attention. Keen to know what this new partnership is about, we read the details, this: [...]

Four executives in African telecoms companies have been listed in the Global Telecoms Business Power 100, a list of the world’s most powerful individuals in telecommunications. The four are; Zimbabwean born Sifiso Dabengwa the CEO of MTN in South Africa, Shameel Joosub the CEO of the Vodacom Group, Chris Wood, the chairman of undersea fibre [...]

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 [...]

South African based telecoms company MTN Group marked Mandela Day by conducting various acts of goodwill in some of it’s operations across Africa and the Middle East. The 18th of July has been officially adopted by the United Nations as “Nelson Mandela International Day”. Mandela Day marks the birthday of South Africa’s first democratic president [...]

The bribery scandal involving the MTN Group and its Iranian associate MTN Irancell is gathering momentum following the suspension of Yusuf Saloojee, South Africa’s ambassador to Oman. Saloojee is the former SA ambassador to Tehran and is among government officials named in the Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetlera AS lawsuit documents citing bribery in the awarding of [...]

Ugandan news sources reported this week that African mobile giant, MTN, reportedly lost billions of shillings from its mobile money service in a fraud case involving the operator’s employees. Though information about the fraud and the investigations around it is only surfacing this week, the fraud itself is reported have occurred in 2011.

Paul Graham, Founder of the Y Combinator incubation hub once spoke of the ingredients required to create Silicon Valley. He summed it up as a combination of:

Rich people (angel or VC investors) + Nerds (talent)

Every year, Interbrand undertakes an extensive probe to determine the world’s top 100 brands. The branding consultancy is among the world’s frontline experts in its field. Along with a parallel ranking conducted by Brand Finance, Interbrand’s top 100 brands survey has become a global standard.

According to a story by Godfrey Marawanyika on Bloomberg, Reward Kangai, the CEO of Netone has revealed that the company has been approached by six foreign investors with four having communicated within the last two weeks. Of the six, Bharti Airtel and MTN Group are front runners as they are spread across more African countries than any other operator on the continent.

Last week, Spiritage (well, their Brodacom subsidiary) posed the question: What would you expect from a true4G network? This is a bold question to ask. Indeed it’s a bold statement in itself; it authoritatively declares that Brodacom is here to offer genuine 4G. It’s bold in that, even in developed economies, large telcos claiming to offer 4G services are being asked to back their 4G claims with some real facts or cease the advertising. Just next door in South Africa, Cell C was forced to pull its 4Gs advertising after MTN and Vodacom lodged complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa accusing Cell C of misleading the consumers.

Africa’s Telecoms Titans is a series by Techzim profiling the top 20 leading mobile operators on the continent. Each segment focuses on a specific mobile operator with insights into services provided including marketing and technical competencies.

The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has revealed through Zimbabwe’s state owned daily, the Herald, that it granted TelOne a GSM mobile phone license late last year.

TelOne is Zimbabwe’s only fixed line operator and is owned by the government. TelOne becomes the country’s fourth mobile operator. The other three are Econet, Telecel and the state owned mobile operator, NetOne.

The rumours about MTN’s interest in acquiring a stake in one of Zimbabwe’s mobile operators have resurfaced, only this time it’s the government owned NetOne up for grabs.

So yes, we’re gleefully wagging our tails yet again, hoping this is not just another Telecel story. MTN was last year reported to be courting Telecel in a deal to acquire a controlling stake in the second largest (by number of subscribers) mobile operator. There was a lot of hype around the deal, with subscribers vowing to switch from whatever network they were on to the new Telecel. But the excitement had to die down. What with the long wait? The then ‘imminent’ deal never was.