The Sunday News
HARARE — State-owned mobile phone operator, NetOne on Wednesday launched two products that are set to transform lives and meet the ever changing needs of the public, which has an insatiable quest for innovative technologies.
Last year NetOne grew its active subscriber base by 14 percent to 4 712 410 while its rivals registered a drop in numbers.
Speaking at the launch of the two products, called One-Fi and One-Cliq, NetOne acting chief executive Brian Mutandiro said the company had shifted from being a mobile service provider to a communication service provider.
The One-Cliq is for closed user groups, both formal and informal, and all one needs is to have a minimum of five people in a group.
Customers sign up using NetOne sim cards and receive special rates so that everyone in the group has access to affordable technology.
The One-Fi product is a wire to the X (WTTX) service where X may represent businesses, churches, homes, universities, schools, shopping malls, hotels and any other public places.
The product can connect up to 32 people at the same location using a NetOne sim card, provides a phone service using the range of numbers that can be matched to suit customer requirements and moves at 20 megabytes per second.
It is cost effective hence packaged with a one-time purchase of a home Wi-Fi device that costs $130 and has five tariffs at $9 for 6GB, $19 for 15GB, $39 for 36GB, $59 for 57GB and the extreme at $99 for 107GB.
“This product is a response to the feedback from our valued customers who had been inconvenienced by being customers of NetOne during the day and shifting to other service providers at night because we did not meet fibre requirements hence this new dispensation,” Mr Mutandiro said.
“We are aware that once we launch this product, the demand for high speed broadband connectivity will continue to rise exponentially hence we will continue monitoring the traffic to enable us to sustainably optimise our network and invest in strategies that densify our LTE network for greater capacity and as proactive measure we are engaging the regulator for more spectrum.”
Mr Mutandiro noted that, “It was just a bit embarrassing that at the beginning of this year we ran out of sim cards, showing the extent to which the market is feeling the impact positively and responding.”
NetOne acting chief operating officer Clever Isaya previously said their customers were being overcharged by other players and the company was taking a lead in making data affordable.
– New Ziana
