So here’s a mobile broadband deal to consider right now. And it’s from a corner we expected the least. As if US $50 a month for uncapped usage wasn’t low enough already, PowerTel just struck $20 off that to offer the same service for just $30 a month unlimited. The price of the modem has also been reduced from $45 to $30.
There’s no mobile broadband deal that competes favourably with this one right now on price. “Price” being the keyword there. We don’t use the service right now and haven’t used it in a while so we have no idea what quality internet that unlimited usage guarantees you right now. We’ll have to review this one again to give you the full picture of the deal.
The deal has a key caveat though. Two actually. First, it expires in a month. That’s usually not much of a deal breaker as promos are hard to take away once customers have a taste of what things could be. But there’s a condition that suggests the expiry rules here may be applied a little stricter than usual; the deal “applies to new connections and reactivations only”. If you’re an existing PowerTel customer, this is not for you.
Also mind that the advertised $30 doesn’t include VAT, so the effective price is $34.50. The price of the modem has also been reduced
PowerTel Communications, a government owned internet provider, is one of the 12 POTRAZ licensed Internet Access Providers in Zimbabwe. The company was first to introduce mobile broadband services back in 2007. PowerTel has however been overtaken by mobile operators, Econet, NetOne and Telecel in the provision of mobile broadband as it did not expand its network coverage fast enough after launch. In recent months PowerTel has expanded service coverage to all cities and major towns along the Mutare – Harare – Bulawayo highway as well as Chinhoyi.
If you’re a PowerTel mobile broadband customer, we’re curious to know your experience with the service? Let us know in the comments below.
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29 comments
great.thats competition
The price is attractive but remember for services such as internet access what counts will be the speed. I hope coverage and network capacity of the base stations has been upgraded and will continually be upgraded in order to cater for extended subscriber base since it is a shared platform.
Otherwise this is quite good PowerTel. We salute you
well sadly my experience of PowerTel is “good when it started”. As of now the speed from home is slower than goodold dial-up used to be. And their support is simply nonexistent, there is NO way to reach them without heading down to NetOne building in person.
having said that they are the ONLY provider I tried that covers my area with some sort of usable signal – Econet, Brodacom and uMax included. Have not tried Telecel or Africom however
Curious to know why you haven’t tired Africom
Call it laziness… I have good connection at work so at home is “off hours” and US50 uncapped and working most of the time is hard to beat…Brodacom was tried as I had access to device, +max as they offered to check the signal, Econet as I have in any case
I hope they upgrade the infrastructure because we are getting very good speeds on powertel as it is!
How good are the speeds? Like speed test to a local destination and one to Europe, or the US?
If you intended to sign up for this package for one month, Please terminate your contract when your subscription ends. Powertel charges you even if you don’t use the modem. You will be disconnected, but billing continues. Eventually they will send you a bill.
They say you have to “terminate your contract” in writing. This is not a prepaid service.
that is robbery!
my experience with powertel is undesirable those guys are just useless their speeds are just too dem slow.u guys talk of price slash,have you improved on your network and service.customer service is unpleasant and useless.
The ruling elite of Dongle-wanaland never ceases to amuse. After going through almost all these operators, l’m also left with a useless Brodacom CDMA wifi unit (l was warned not to buy it!!!!!!). Lesson learn’t; rather buy a smartphone if you can and invest the 30 bucks in data bundles…Otherwise for PRIMARY pc usage either pay for the real deal or get the value driven Telone ADSL if you have access to a landline. State sponsored propaganda seldom lasts in Dongle-wanaland, before you know it crappy service will rule the day!
http://www.techzim.co.zw/2011/06/ever-been-to-dongle-wanaland/
I been using Powertel for 4 months now after getting fed up waiting in the Telone ADSL service,i was a bit skeptical but its been great,awesome for me, I should confess.I am averaging speeds of @ least 50kbs during the day,and during the night it over 100kbs,what I have managed to do with my dongle is download movies,skype conferences,watched you tube videos without problems,I hardly have any problems connecting to the net for basic and heavy use.I have even hit 1,6 MB per sec,yes u heard me right for at least 5min
A lot of guys told me a lot about Powertel and their bad services but thus far its been great,maybe its because i am in Bulawayo.I have recommended @ least 2 friends and they been enjoying it as well.Maybe so few of us are nowing using it and we enjoying it while other guys are just being critical of something there have not used recently.
The downside is as maybe some pointed out they can cut you off if you dont pay for a month but to avoid this all you have to do its tell them in advance that you are not paying in advance for whatever reason but before the current time period expires.
So i think the promotion is great ,I agree its the best offer for the price and service ,i would not hesitate to recommend to anyone!!!!!!!!!
Who cares Powertel!?…Its almost midnight and it still took me a good 3 refreshes just to load up this page and still the ads didnt even load!…Trying to download a 5meg file from my email takes a good 30minutes and now they want to entice more congestion on the network by lowering prices!!…As for the guy in Byo, enjoy it while it lasts…the first day I got powertel a while back I was hitting 1mb per second…today, I’m hitting 2kb/s…and thats on a good day. Their customer services is also poorly trained as everytime you call with an issue they just say we’ll check into it and this has been for the past 9months!
Stay away prospective customers before powertel utterly ruins your internet experience. Rather go with telecel or econet as these days they seem to be holding up though econet has its “powertel” days.
wow someone is angry…..I agree in some areas powertel sucks esp in places where internet is mostly congested like cbd areas but where I stay i’m cruesing baba ,flying with an ultimate speed of 2.7mbp which makes my internet speed being limited by only my modem speed and files like 5mb ,those I dnt even count. the only ones I count are game files ranging to 23GB
Maybe its because there hasnt been much uptake in Mutare, but the speeds are pretty impressive
James, service in Mutare now down for 3 days and 16 hours, with no information on outage resolution available. Still finding it impressive?
TechZim don’t mislead people by overpraising PowerTel. There is nothing to celebrate, there is no reduction in price here, it is just a promotion which saves US $ 15 for the first month and after that you will pay US $50. That means you should get your facts right before misleading people because this article suggests that PowerTel has reduced from US$ 50 to US$30 which is not the case.
You read the whole article?
At least its better than Africom.Africom caused me grief from day one,its not user-friendly and the staff is just not competent.
Calling card for Skype users. Zim Landline 0.13 USD and Mobile Starting from 0.22 USD
All you need is to be logged into Skype and a PIN. email me Durai9@hotmail.com
Bought a Powertel Dongle in Mutare on Thursday. Friday night 7pm, Powertel service goes down. Now Saturday 10am, still no service. Support line says “We are working on it, will be restored as soon as possible…” Not a good first experience.
Now 7am Monday morning, still no service, and nobody to contact. For an organisation claiming to be an ISP, this is pathetic. An entire region/hub is down for over 48 hours, and they cant be bothered to sort it out?
Now Tuesday midday, still no service anywhere in Mutare region. Still no information as to anticipated restoration time frame, despite having left telephone number with technician after trying 6 support numbers before one actually answered! Downtime so far 3 days, and 16 hours. Powertel service is pathetic – end of story.
So Wednesday morning arrives, 4 days and 18 hours of no service in Mutare. People need to be aware that Powertel network support is non-existent. The dongle purchased last Thursday was online for 24 hours, and off ever since. Pathetic.
Mutare Network now (Wednesday afternoon) down almost 5 days. Call center apologise profusely……. “We have had to import spares”??????????????? How do you run a network without stock of spares of EVERYTHING that can fail on that network? At 8am today was assured “by14h00 service will be restored” . Phoned at 2pm, and now assured “by close of business today, service will be restored”……
Yehaaa! Thursday morning 7am. Service restored. Down time of 5 days 12 hours. I guess Powertel only attend to network faults down this end of the world during office hour. Bad luck the fault occurred on Friday night before Heroes weekend!
am in byo cbd bt the speeds that am getting a very poor. sometimes it doesn’t connect at all.pliz do something abt this o else wl stop subscribing
I agree in some areas powertel sucks esp in places where internet is mostly congested like cbd areas but where I stay i’m cruesing baba ,flying with an ultimate speed of 2.7mbp which makes my internet speed being limited by only my modem speed and files like 5mb ,those I dnt even count. the only ones I count are game files ranging to 23GB