Econet Expansion

Econet's US$300 million expansion on target


16/01/2010 00:00:00
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Vision ... Douglas Mboweni


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MOBILE phone company, Econet Wireless is set to commission 200 base stations constructed under its US$300 million network expansion program.

Econet Chief Executive Officer, Douglas Mboweni said the company would also be commissioning a fibre optic network system in all major cities as part of effort to reduce congestion on its network.

“We have built over 400 base stations, of which 200 will come on line in the next six weeks alone (and) by March Econet will begin to commission its fibre optic system in the major cities.

“This will completely eliminate one of the major causes of congestion on a network, and also upgrade the provision of data services, including 3G,”said Mboweni.

Econet said a national role out of its 3G network which is currently restricted to Harare is also on the cards.

“The current system is small and limited to the Harare area. By March, it will be fully national, and vastly improved in terms of capacity and speed. We will have a world class 3G system by the time we get to June,” Mboweni said.

The Econet chief executive added that the company had surpassed 3 million subscribers on its network on a 5.1 million capacity prepaid system.

“We are sitting on a prepaid system capacity of 5.1 million, and we are carrying just 3 million subscribers at present.” said Mboweni.

Econet is one of the top picks on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) and dwarfs rival mobile phone operators, Telecel Zimbabwe and the state-owned Net-one on the local market.

The company is a subsidiary of global telecoms group Econet Wireless International which was founded by Zimbabwean entrepreneur, Strive Masiyiwa.

Meanwhile plans by the government to either completely or part-privatise Net-one could increase competition on the local market with South African giant MTN said to be eying government’s stake in the firm.
NewZimbabwe.com