What is going on with mobile data in Zim? It’s a disaster for sure and we need your help to see how bad it is.

Edwin Chabuka Avatar

Let’s just say since 2019, mobile internet has just gone to the pits. Internet speeds plummeted and as if that was not enough, the stability of the internet connection itself took a big hit. And it’s not just that. There are instances where you purchase a data bundle and it only starts working after fiddling with airplane mode or restarting your mobile device. And that is if you are lucky otherwise these measures sometimes do not work and your bundle is only activated hours later.

I’m going to call out POTRAZ on this one because the contractual agreement we have with MNOs is that we pay for a service that delivers industry standards of performance and uptime. And these metrics are the regulator’s duty to monitor. They alone have the power to keep all internet service providers in check. But maybe they are not acting because the data for this is not present. The best way to help each other get to the bottom of this is to collect the data from you and me and present our Twitter complaints with proper evidence in black and white. It’s a team effort.

So please fill out this form as honestly as you can. It is a total of 8 questions that will take you no more than 2 minutes to fill out. Plenty of us have resorted to having multiple service providers partly because of the inconsistencies in network performance. If you are one of those, you are encouraged to fill out the form multiple times for the different service providers you are using, the more data we can collect, the clearer the picture we will all have of what exactly is going on with Mobile internet in the country. Click here to fill out the form.

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42 comments

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  1. Captain Jack Sparrow

    With the authors tech savvy lingo I fail to understand why he can’t comprehend a simple law of business – minimise overheads maximise profits . In Zimbabwe electricity is the devil in the profitability of an enterprise, guys at the NOC can switch off some services while allowing recharging less traffic less power demand unfortunately for the user the bundle has a time limit kkkkkkk

  2. 👽

    Ndozo clicker ndane data izvezvi andina rukudhura ndukupinda mahara..saka nxt weekend musamhanye henyu kubvisa

  3. Ezra

    Firstly data does not connect immediately,it’s either I reboot my device or play with Apn or airplane mode.
    Secondly Econet data evaporates like parrafin it’s ludicrous how jus being on face book and watching a few videos less than a 100m can gobble 1 gig in less than 30 mins

  4. Ezra

    Firstly data does not connect immediately,it’s either I reboot my device or play with Apn or airplane mode.
    Secondly Econet data evaporates like parrafin it’s ludicrous how jus being on face book and watching a few videos less than a 100m can gobble 1 gig in less than 30 mins.
    Thirdly how does dat increase in usd terms and rtgs.the usd is not devaluing soo how does the price not remain stable,these telecom companies are taking us for granted

    1. Miller

      No connection issue… I feel you on that. I also sometimes have to use VPN to boost performance on tethered devices.

      Video is the great liar! I have turned on every data saving option in YouTube settings, so every time I open a video, it asks me what resolution it should be. And no matter how small the video size is, note all the other stuff that loads alongside it will boost the data count.

      US data prices increasing is a challenge. I guess if they are running their infrastructure on USD fuel when ZESA is on break, it becomes inevitable that that gap will have to be covered somehow.

  5. Kolya Krasotkin

    It’s a deliberate scam. They throttle mobile network speeds and delay the activation of mobile internet bundles. You buy 1 GIG and after using less than half, you are notified of it’s exhaustion.

    The NETONE Night Bundle is the most horrible. It’s supposed to activate from 10PM to 5AM. But in my experience it only starts working after 12:00 midnight. In any case the night Bundle is super slow, quickly gets depleted & I rarely use half of it before receiving notification that it’s exhausted. Anyway, why should MNOs be honest when Prophits & Gold Mafias are shamelessly croocked.

  6. Anon

    1. Brain Drain – Most of the good Engineers have left, others are in the process of leaving
    2. Potraz – The biggest overhead is the licensing costs. The cost of the internet keeps decreasing worldwide
    3. Infrastructure sharing not being implemented – that will further reduce the costs

  7. DEBBIE Ottman

    You have missed out Telone on your doc
    I can’t submit because of that

  8. Captain Jack Sparrow

    @Debbie They is no need to highlight the minors in the league kkkkkk Common knowledge TelOne services are below par

    1. Noe

      I don’t understand the USD price hike
      Also why is there off peak data bundle thats daylight robbery, they are not even ashamed to include it on one hour bundle. The network is horrible can’t even make calls

      1. Anonymous

        thank you

  9. Anonymous

    It is being stolen by ISP while u sleeping. No one is held accountable coz they bribe officials at POTRAZ. Register to vote CCC. And you will have working systems.

  10. Concerned citizen

    To be honest, I do not have problems with ECONET when it comes to activating bundles in time even their internet speeds are fair, at least in every town I go to. However the same cannot be said for NetOne. It’s like a disease, with NetOne you have to frequently play with airplane mode to improve connectivity. It is really bothersome. NetOne is pathetic and incompetent. It’s just weak

    1. Issac

      Me either. Econet has been delivering. NetOne on the other hand – ma1. I think we’re actually on 2G.

  11. The Observer

    I don’t honestly think netone is offering 4G network for the past 6 months +

  12. Craig Mashura

    You left out liquid home wibronix

  13. Edgar Munatsi

    After paying almost usd100 you completely get nothing. Liquid needs to pull up their socks.

  14. Blessing Musoni

    True data is just disappearing , Normally I use $20 per month now per week sometimes , within 3days it done. It doesn’t make sense at all.

    1. The Last Don

      You are talking about data only? Sometimes I can’t even access USSD codes to check if I still have data left. I’m using NetOne data (MoGigs) because of the price and it’s a mess. I haven’t encountered the problem of disappearing data but it’s the speeds which are giving me hell. I was used to Mzansi speeds for the past 6 years then coming here was like transitioning from using bullet train to using a sledge (chirheyi). Econet also is not strong in the part of Glen View 1 where I live so I had no choice. Ma1.

  15. Isaac

    Just began using 4G & Econet has given me quite a bad experience. Well, the speeds are way too good but the thing is, I’d usually go for hours with 50MB but now sometimes I don’t even use it yet it depletes in less 2 minutes of buying it. My phone updated some-stuff behind my back.

    I don’t understand why we now have to toggle with flight mode to use our data bundles though.

    1. Isaac

      Using NetOne these days feels just as much as connecting to Droid 😂

  16. Taps

    Buddle too expensive but service yacho iri very pathetic.

  17. Simba

    I bought a 10G Netone bundle valid for a month for 21 dollars .I stayed in Zim for 2 weeks.When i left i had 9.8 G.This is grand theft.The data does not work at all .It s a scam .

  18. Nigel

    Haa netone inosvota unoita kunge uchapwanya fon ichinonoka kuconnect

  19. Anonymous

    My biggest problem with Netone is internet stability. Yooo for someone who streams football games i haven’t been able to stream a single game this season properly. One minute my internet is above 10mbs per second the net its gone. But for those struggling with network on netone make sure you ae on these ip address 10.208.××××.××× or 10.211.xxx.xxxx

  20. The Last Don

    I was taken aback when I asked both Econet and NetOne for their apps and I was surprised they told me that they have no working apps. Can you imagine. I told them point blank that they have no business in ICT and telcos if they can’t be on the forefront of innovation. How do we manage our communication if they don’t develop apps to easily manage our SIM cards? Right now I still operate my MTN profile from here on their app which our local MNOs are failing to do.

  21. francis

    The internet can just stop working completely, now l have switched to many different networks from econet , netone , zol , telone but with no joy only Fibre works well but now you can move with Fibre on your phone

  22. Anonymous

    Bought econet hourly data to attend a Zoom meeting, only attended the last 10mins. The 1st 50mins I was busy switching the phone on and off, airplane mode trying to get connected

  23. Imi Vanhu Musadaro

    What happens after the form is filled? Will you present this information to POTRAZ, will you publish the results or will it perhaps be a paid download?

  24. Anonymous

    Data is no longer a luxury but a means of livelihood Zim service providers need to be serious for sure

  25. Terence Clark

    Netone is the worst, you lose much data due to inconsistent connection as downloads keeps on restarting. For example a 1 Gig download may fail at around 300mbs and when you click retry the download starts from zero. With econet i have issues of slow speeds during peak hour but at least their connection is consistent and the bundle activates roughly a minute after purchasing unlike netone which takes something like 30 minutes or so of turn flight mode on and off. Netone=Pure garbage

  26. Anonymous

    I have problems with internet at 1900hrs till 2100hrs on econet

    1. Isaac

      I have noticed this since 2017

  27. Anonymous

    Netone is stilling from us. I bought the monthly 15G for USD10, i struggled the whole month of April to connect. I dont know how many times i switched off my phone to try to get connected but ti no avail. At the end of the month i still had 7G which was forfeited. Why does data expire, after all i hve paid for it, it is mine, why why. So the thing is one buys this expensive data from Netone, the network then gets throttled, then it expires, DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

  28. Anonymous

    ..stealing..

  29. Anonymous

    Netone is stealing from us. I bought the monthly 15G for USD10, i struggled the whole month of April to connect. I dont know how many times i switched off my phone to try to get connected but ti no avail. At the end of the month i still had 7G which was forfeited. Why does data expire, after all i hve paid for it, it is mine, why why. So the thing is one buys this expensive data from Netone, the network then gets throttled, then it expires, DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

  30. Tinashe Kajambe

    Yah we need starlink mybe can help us POTRAZ vanenge varikupihwa chioko muhomwe

  31. Isaac

    I bet NetOne will lose even more customers this quarter. You can’t seriously be buying the 15GB $10 NetOne bundle when you only get to use about a third. At this point I’m even more determined to stay on Econet.

  32. Anonymous PQR

    I liked this one “There are instances where you purchase a data bundle and it only starts working after fiddling with airplane mode or restarting your mobile device. And that is if you are lucky otherwise these measures sometimes do not work and your bundle is only activated hours later”
    FYI with Netone their hourly bundle starts working after 40 minutes thus 20 mins until expiry.
    Takaroyiwa newakafa idi

  33. Anonymous PQR

    Having been a Telecel user for more than a decade I think I will continue for a foreseeable future. Despite its ups and downs, with Telecel you dont need to keeping toggling flight mode and restarting your device. If there is no network then there nothing but it has been very consistent for me.

  34. SR G

    NetOne is the worst. The data bundles only start working after hours of recharging. POTRAZ must do something

  35. Zeddicus Zul Zarrander

    For me to do a speed test , the internet has to actually be working. Been trying since yesterday but am getting the “dragon” game all the time. That’s how bad Netone has become in my area (Kuwadzana Extension).
    Econet is ok when there is electricity but as soon as Zesa does it’ s thing, no connection. Now with the levels of load shedding we are experiencing, it’s pointless to talk about Econet. Telecel in my area, non starter. It is 3G and can go for a week with no data connection. The struggle of being a Zimbabwean is real. Fighting for basic things like internet 😥.

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