Zimbabwean Operator Secures Foreign Currency for Ericsson Order

Zimbabwe's Econet says that it has secured foreign currency to further expand its network from 800,000 to 1.3 million subscribers by the end of the August this year, the second such major expansion the company will have undertaken in less than a year.

A spokesman confirmed that Econet has concluded the facility arrangements and has already placed orders with Ericsson for the supply of equipment. Econet will build new switches and also add more base stations around the country, he said.

"This expansion has been timed to coincide with the end of the current 300 000 capacity upgrade set to be completed by the end of this month. This is to avoid having to release the construction crew. They will therefore continue to carry on with the work and the new capacity should be available by August this year," the spokesman said.

He said this expansion is even bigger than the current upgrade started last year.

Econet is already finalizing plans to add one more digit to its numbering system to facilitate the expansion. Currently the company's numbering system has 9 digits and it cannot accomodate more than 1 million subscribers, hence the move to 10 digit numbers, he said.

Meanwhile, Econet is confident that other players in the industry will also expand their interconnect links to Econet to allow easier movement of traffic."

Posted to the site on 12th February 2007