Vusumuzi DubeRutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
LISTED telecommunications service provider Econet Wireless Zimbabwe says the continued power outages have affected the network quality and reliability hence they have stepped up efforts towards augmenting power supply.
This was revealed by the Group Company Secretary Mr Charles Banda in a trading update for the first quarter which ended 31 May 2022.
“Persistent national grid power outages have affected network quality and reliability, thereby necessitating us to increase our efforts to augment our power supply with solar power. However, as inflation increases and disposable incomes are coming under more pressure, there is a discernible increase in the theft of diesel, batteries and solar panels. In response, we have enhanced security at our sites to counter the effects of increased vandalism and theft,” said Mr Banda.
He said an increase in the uptake of support services or self-care platforms was noted and this has seen an improvement in their query resolution time and customer experience.
“Voice and data traffic for the period under review grew by 6 percent and 18 percent respectively, over the previous quarter. This growth was achieved largely due to our customer acquisition strategy,” he said.
Meanwhile the rural population remains marginalised in terms of full access to digital services with less than 20 percent of devices in the country being LTE/4G capable.
“The Group, with the support of the authorities, would like to tackle this challenge (access to network in rural areas) to ensure that digital inclusivity is achieved across all sectors of our society.”
Econet is one of the leading telecommunications service provider together with Netone and Telecel.
@nyeve14
Online Reporter