Zimbabwe's Econet Wireless says that it plans to launch 3G services in the troubled country next year, starting in the capital, Harare before extending to other major urban centers. Chief Executive Officer Douglas Mboweni said Econet has ordered equipment from Ericsson for an initial capacity of 50,000 lines, which will be over and above the additional 300,000 lines for normal cellular service that the company will start releasing from next month under its current US$20 million expansion program to increase network capacity from 500,000 to 800,000.
Econet said that it expects that top business executives, and professionals will be the main users for the new service. Presumably the user base would also include the repressive security services and government officials.
Econet will initially push the 3G service into the high end of market as part of its Business Partna service which is aimed at businessmen, top executives, and senior government officials. This is because the handsets required for 3G are expensive compared to the normal cellular service. The company is however planning to introduce a pre-paid version for Buddie and Libertie users sometime next year. There are also technical issues to be overcome over how to bill pre-paid customers.
Mboweni also said that work on the expansion of the normal cellular service was progressing well and the company has already developed 80 new base station sites which are now ready for new equipment to be installed and commissioned soon. Econet is planning to start releasing lines by the end of October and to have sold most of the lines by the end of January 2007."
Posted to the site on 18th September 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/19396.php