The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has instilled a sense of unity and purpose amongst telecom operators in a move set to improve information access across the country’s ten provinces.
Last week, POTRAZ brought together all the operators including Econet, Telecel, Powertel, Netone and Africom and many others in Murewa to commemorate the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day held every 17th of May across the globe.
Speaking during the celebrations, the POTRAZ Director General, Dr Gift Machengete said the regulator is committed to achieving its millennium goal of ensuring total connectivity across Zimbabwe through enabling high speed Internet access in all the country’s ten provinces.
He further added that POTRAZ will continue with its consumer awareness campaigns after successfully engaging six provinces so far. Part of the consumer awareness campaigns includes gathering complains from customers who are receiving poor services and then engage the service providers for settlement. Such an educative trail has brought together all the telecom players to operate with one goal of providing quality services to subscribers.
Minister of ICT and Cyber Security, Supa Mandiwanzira who was the guest of honor officiated the celebrations reinforced Muchenje’s remarks adding that government was committed to promoting growth in the information and communication technology industry to ensure total connectivity of all Zimbabweans.
Mandiwanzira added that it was his ministry’s duty to create a favorable environment which promotes growth in Zimbabwe’s information communication technology industry.
He added that government was committed to attract more investment into the telecommunications after the successful acquiring of a $98m loan facility from China Exim Bank which funded TelOne’s national broadband project.
Liquid Telecom representative, Lilian Nyangoni said the operator has already laid over 19,000km of fibre in Zimbabwe, a development which has seen schools and all tertiary institutions being connected to reliable Internet services. She added that Liquid has also partnered with leading multi-technology giants such Microsoft to deliver computer utilities such Office 365 and Azure over the cloud.
TelOne Managing Director, Chipo Mutasa said they have already trenched fibre across Murewa to increase Internet capacity in the area. Furthermore, the fixed telecom operator already has existing infrastructure in almost every corner of the country allowing its customers to access fixed phone services and Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) Internet services.
Lazarus Muchenje, the newly installed NetOne CEO explained that his team has begun pushing new and exciting products into the market which include OneMoney, the state owned operator’s mobile money service. He added that NetOne has already rolled out 3G base stations in Murewa and other 736 across Zimbabwe. This has seen the operator increasing its network coverage and also enhancing mobile Internet access in rural areas.
Econet which is Zimbabwe’s leading mobile network operator has promised to deliver 4G base stations in Murewa and other rural areas around Zimbabwe to enable high speed Internet access for every citizen. Econet currently leads in mobile network infrastructure with 1498 3G base stations and 634 LTE bases spanning across the country.
