Data war escalates

The war for mobile broadband market has continued to escalate as State-owned operator TelOne continues to exploit the new emerging broadband market with their innovative products.

They initially launched the first ever most affordable data promotion when they offered $1 for 100MB data, and just recently they added an extra bonus of 250 Megabytes (MB) to offer to make it 350MB for a dollar.

We have every reason to believe that they want to dominate the market and the improved offer is a reaction to Econet which is offering a whopping 250MB for a dollar.

To date, the TelOne bundle is the best offer on the market and it will be interesting to see how the market will respond to this new promotion which has made mobile broadband access a reality for all in Zimbabwe.

However, the drawback for TelOne is that their mobile hotspots are fixed and will not be able to meet the needs of mobile subscribers who demand their data on the go.

Their major limitation is that they are targeting people who walk into their hotspot areas, probably those that want to while up time waiting for someone at bus stations or other public areas, which brings great convenience to such areas but this solution will not be of any impact to mobile users that want to be connected while they are on the move.

Their target currently is mass market where people are likely to converge and take much longer time online hence the mobility experience will greatly improve if they set up in areas like the Joina City where the young who are already embracing the service converge.

TelOne’s new promotion could help it market its upcoming “Metro Wifi” or technically city wifi project as they drive towards being a converged service provider in Zimbabwe.

Powertel is, however, close on their heels with their current offering of $2,50 for 1GB or 2GB of data for only $5 promotion based on their CDMA network and fibre.

The major advantage they have is mobility, while they are still to fix the most sticking issue of coverage, which still makes it good news only to a few subscribers under their coverage, their major ill is that it expires after two days, which makes sense only for heavy downloads, though we are yet to test the reported high speeds.

Telco, one of the players in the market, has a $1 for 110MB which leaves it 240MB short of what TelOne is offering and they are yet to complete the matrix on coverage.

Africom, another CDMA carrier, has remained resonant with their $1 offering 100mb of data, while they equally face the same limitations of wireless transmission over CDMA transmission and coverage issues.

ZOL Zimbabwe, which has been tagged for fast broadband, has got a solution for their mobile hotspots called Zolspots offering 100MB for $5 which they complement with a promotion of $9 for a 1Gig on their fibre lasting for 30 days. – Technomag.