Following Tuesday’s post about TelOne’s connection to the Mozambican fibre cable, there have been some questions about a statement in the story that Africom has already connected to the TDM fibre cable in Mozambique.
Well, yes, it is true. We heard this first hand from Africom CEO, Mr. Kwanayi Kashangura back in September at the launch of Africom’s new brand. It wasn’t a big announcement for some reason but he did say it, and anyone who attended the launch probably remembers this.
Why the in-passing announcement or why Africom has been mostly silent about this otherwise very significant milestone is anyone’s guess.
If you’re out there and know a bit more to this, say something in the comments below. Some healthy speculation is welcome as well 😉
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Perhaps they are showing a little modesty. A first in Zimbabwe.
Maybe, they dont have much capacity on it or its not operational, speculative though
I just returned from South Africa and bought MTN’s 1G data. What an awful experience. I ended up doing minimal browsing after midnight. Returned home whipped my Africom modem and it seems it’s faster than when I left a week ago. Africom can feel proud on what they have achieved in Zim, hat’s to them! I have bought 2 additional modems from them for a total of 3!
That Africom is connected to the undersea cable shouldn’t surprise at all. The browsing speeds I have been experiencing on lately left me wondering how they were pulling off those speeds, in comparison to other mobile networks with bigger resources. What I am wondering though is whether or not TelOne and Africom ran separate fiber links to the undersea cable or they pooled resources! Regardless, reasonable internet speed and connectivity have now come to Zim, let the internet economy blossom.
If it is true then it will take away the expectation that many have that the new fibre connections will result in dramatic improvements in service quality (bandwidth and pricing wise)
How did they connect without any digging? (Or are we talking about the Powertel fibre?)
They did dig. For a while actually.. before all this fibre hype started
Just to clarify a bit guys. Africom did dig from Mutare CBD to the Forbes border post where there TDM Mozambique fibre has a Point of Presence (POP). That link is active right now. TDM is the one that will connect them to coast to any of the undersea cables. What has not yet happened is them finishing the fibre from Harare to Mutare. So we can say Mutare is connected but not the rest of Zim. Africom said maybe January is when they will finish the Hre-Mutare link to connect the rest of Zim.
@JamesM – Africom and Tel-One dug up separate trenches to Mutare. Tel-One was digging parallel to the highway and Africom was digging next to the railway line.
Very tragic and wasteful way of doing business in my opinion.
Thanks for the clarification! Any idea when they will extend the undersea capacity to Bulawayo?
Having multiple fibre connection, for a country like Zimbabwe that has such expensive and slow connections is not wasteful. In telecommunications, and I suppose in other sectors as well, the only resource worth limiting partcipants is a finite resource (e.g. spectrum). As for cable, the more the merrier. Remember these dudes always run some spreadsheat that tells them that there is money (buckets of it) to be made out there! This means that there is enough demand and therefore let them bring it on!
Congrats Africom, at least they don’t make noise about it and then charge exorbitant prices later…
There is already a fibre connection from Moza to Mutare and its working well. They have dug up from Harare towards Mutare and that connection is not yet complete.
For harare guys like me, Africom has connected us on a powertel fibre and has its satelite link as backup. When they connected via powertel a couple of months ago, their prices went down. got no major problems with them. Looking forward to even greater browsing when they finaly connect harare and Mutare
all of you guys are loosing the point the falsified facts to the clients if the don’t have a link between hre and mutare. as usual a lot of praise singing when people are shot changing the public. the point is the company is not yet connected period having a point of presence that doesn’t do what its meant to do means nothing
as long as its cheaper and faster than econets slow G thy can lie to me all thy like
is there anyone in bulawayo getting anything close to broadband speeds from africom my dongle is slower than dial up and im 2kms away fro a base station!!