Spiritage Introduces Brodacom; Mobile voice telephony and 4G Internet

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar

Today, Spiritage Group introduced Brodacom, its new company that will offer new voice telephony and broadband internet services. A teaser advert appeared in the local papers yesterday and we incorrectly attributed the new services to Valley Technologies, a Spiritage owned internet access provider. And as we have learned today, the services are actually under the new company and brand.

The official website for the new company is www.brodacom.com. On the website a number of products and services are listed, notably:

  • Brodahome / broadBand, an internet services product for homes and business.
  • Tokmo, a prepaid voice service;
  • Tokbusiness mobile, a postpaid voice service,
  • Value Added Services like Mobile Banking, Push Mail, Push to Talk, Tele & Video Conferencing, SMS and Multi-media Messaging Services (MMS). Mostly the standard services that mobile operators offer.

There also is a BrodaStore which we didn’t succeed accessing, even through the search function. From the information we got when we toured the Spiritage Network Operations Center some months back, the store will probably offer gadgets and downloads that subscribers can buy directly from the site.

The one thing missing which we looked for is the tariff table. We’re curious to compare Brodacom tariffs to voice and data tariffs by incumbent telecoms operators (NetOne, Econet, Telecel, TelOne and Africom). The last Valley Tech tariff schedule released in April this year, had tariffs as ultra low as Africom’s. Then, Valley Tech declined to confirm if the tariffs would be the same at launch. We hope they are.

On voice coverage, the advertisements say that initially it’ll just be Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Chitungwiza. If you’re wondering how that compares to Africom, it looks like Africom has larger coverage for now (they have Marondera and Rusape as well).

Though Brodacom hasn’t mentioned it yet, the company faces the same issue of technology that Africom faces: The network is not GSM, so to start using the Brodacom voice services, a subscriber will need to buy a new supported mobile phone. Still, if you’d like to reserve a cool phone number and to make migration as painless for your contacts as possible, you can reserve your Brodacom phone number here: www.reserveyournumber.co.zw.

Update (July 13, 1600hrs): In the time since we posted the article, Spiritage has just replaced their website with a quickly slapped-together “Website Coming Soon!” message. Turns out it wasn’t ready for public viewing.

The www.reserveyournumber.co.zw website, which was supposed to go live at 2PM today, unfortunately didn’t meet the schedule for some reason. It still says “Site accessible from 2pm”)

16 comments

  1. Kurai

    Tobaiwa nayo 4G. (Its falling like manna)

    1. Tafmak3000

      I’t dial up with fancy names really! 

  2. VaChikwanha

    Look, frankly speaking, I am a trigenerian Zimbabwean (almost) so rhetoric does not often move me. I am actually quite sick of the hype that surrounds a lot of these ISP’s and IAP’s launches. I sincerely hope that whatever these guys are promising to be 4G will really be 4G. I suggest they have a closer look at client-side requirements laid out by the  ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is truly what they are representing them to be. Taneta nekubaizwa nana sicko-net

  3. Nerudo Curtis Mregi

    Please please Zimbabwe before I read this lets not lie about 4G. Handidi hangu with my words

  4. Charles Garanganga

    the best will be to wait and c, ko if you give a date as long as it is on the calendar it will soon get here……..make gadgets available and we test…..seems we are lagging behind even on simple things……usually around the world if you have faith in your products give the gizmoz your gadgets to test and reviews are posted……Techzim is here they can do the reviews…..

    1. vince

      u sound like 1 frm spiritage haaa
      verizon at and t are the only 1s with a robust 4g netwek
      other countries don implement it coz its expensive
      then comes poor zimbabwe titori ne budget deficit
      stop lyin guys

      1. zimbo

        We have china on our side bru… Established networks find it expensive cos they are replacing not starting from ground up. Imagine u build a mansion then after a while you want to make it energy efficient using solar etc. Then comes poor me with a 200 square metre plot to built a 4 roomed cottage that is solar powered throughout. Who will complain kuti zvinodura. 

        1. Cde Victory

          My Gosh -Chinese -Watch them

  5. Charles Garanganga

    ooh had missed something just a quick internet search will give you these definitions: 4G (in WIMAX Category) 128 Mbit/s downlink and 56 Mbit/s uplink and in LTE which l doubt is what is being talked about here : Peak Download 100 Mbit/s Peak Upload 50 Mbit/s and LTE Advanced (Still in testing phase) a cool Peak Download 1 Gbit/s and Peak Upload 500 Mbit/s l once had an opportunity to use Telia and guys these speeds are real not the ones in testing…so by these standards we will see if this is true……and also the prices have to make sense…

    1. vince

      charles ths mite be true rite
      but ive been tellin these guys u lost it pa economic feasibility apa
      no individual rite nw is usin econet wimax
      so who wuld use brodacom 4g
      twil be expensive
      unless they wanna break even

  6. Timehits

    I shall happily stick to powertel for the time being…sure they have their issues but they have possibly the most potential to give us blazing fast speeds. After all, isn’t the fibre these companies are relying on mostly powertel and econet?…our 2 biggest headaches!

    1. vince

       i thnk these guys are takin the fibre frm liquid
      liquid supplies econet
      iwe wanhu ava ndivana sekuru nevazukuru ava
      they no each other
      vanoda kuti bhaiza mhani ava
      too me econet/valley/econet/brodacom/wazara/masiiwa
      chinhu wani ichi with different names

  7. ngoni

    i cant open their site and i cant see the reviews on their true4g.com site which they said would be available for viewing today. if they can’t deliver such simple things at the time they said they would, i doubt they can give real 4g.

    1. ngoni

      btw the site is true4g.co.zw, pardon my mistake

  8. Tafmak3000

    Question! Is it possible to sue a company that misrepresents their service???

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