So quite a few people have noticed that somewhere along their One Fusion experience WhatsApp calling mysteriously stops working, this is happening to One Fusion subscribers on the $5 and $10 plans but as far as we have gathered it’s the same case on all of NetOne’s One Fusion products.
So what is going on?
On One Fusion 5, you get you get 300mb of mobile data, 700mb for WhatsApp and 900mb for Facebook. On One Fusion 10, you get a much healthier mobile data allowance of 800mb and Unlimited social media access as illustrated below. 
However, it seems as though once your mobile data runs out on any of the One Fusion products your ability to make WhatsApp voice calls also stops.
We’ve also noticed that your mobile data is first exhausted before you actually start to use the social media bundles, and that is why you only realise that WhatsApp calling has stopped working midway through the month.
So all the WhatsApp calls you previously made were on mobile data and not on WhatsApp bundles, which do not allow WhatsApp calling at all!
Why would NetOne do this?
Well, as part of the OneFusion they offer their voice service which allows you to make Net One to Net One calls as well as Calls to other networks.
So, we would assume that NetOne would want its subscribers to at least use their voice service for calls while using the social media bundles for all other communication.
Do you even notice?
When you’re on OneFusion 5 you will probably notice that you can’t make WhatsApp calls in a week or two, but it really depends on how much internet you use outside of social media.If you’re someone that uses their One Fusion 5 or 10 to stream movies or watch videos on YouTube your bound to run out of data before you 30 day period expires, so it really boils down to how you manage your data usage.
We still think One Fusion is your best bet for staying online which is becoming a huge expense by the day, but it too requires some kind of management. Once you have exhausted your mobile data bundle, One Fusion performance drops quite dramatically which gives us reason to believe social media is throttled quite extensively.
In the end, we seem to be paying for the mobile data, that’s where the real One Fusion experience is.
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13 comments
Thats what is happenning
Well that is why i stick to my Good old ECONET. The only network you can make Whatsapp calls with your whatsapp bundle.
Im failing to make app calls on econet whatsapp bundles.. how are you doing it.. for me it only works when the person calling is outside Zim
I do not have inside information, but looking at what whatsapp use for call protocol, it can point to why if data bundle is finished then calls stop. I do not think NetOne is intentionally doing that!
Whatsapp use Voip(voice over ip) for the calling protocol. Voip packets on any network will always appear as normal data packets if no packet inspection is done.
Inside NetOne network, whatsapp voip calls will be seen as data packets hence data bundle will be used. If your data bundle runs out, then voip calls will be drop as there is no intelligence within the network to see that it is actually whatsapp voip, so the packets needs to be charged to whatsapp bundle.
NetOne needs to apply some specialist DPI to identify all incoming and outgoing packets. This can be done via QoS then link it to bundles they have or install specialist software for their billing which can do the same thing
Macd Chip – I would like to ask, just out of curiosity: Are you an engineer?
l would not call myself that but l do know a little bit of networking, security, voip, storage, OS(both MS and Linux), telecoms, data centre etc
Even with this I’m still going to use fusion… My whole family is on it now… So I actually use on net bundles…but the safest bet just get a dual Sim and switch accordingly…. While you stick with one line… They are Samsung duos range that will give you premium dual Sim experience
Its sad though my data shouldn’t be exhausted 1st. It should be for other internet and shouldn’t be used on social media. They’re ripping us off on that one
l do not they are doing that intentionally, just that there is no separation between voip call packets and internet browsing data packets. Its a small fix which can be resolved buy dpi and qos.
I have used WhatsApp calling several times on Econet. Over and above Macd’s comments, is there a way of proving they are not blocking it?
Maybe they are, but why only when your data bundle runs out? That to looks more like technical issue, l might be wrong as well
Ive noticed dat too, and their 4g coverage z e worst. I don knoe whether ts ma fone or wat bt econet works juss fine. Please improve ur network netone
thanks