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Tonderai Rutsito
TelOne was this week smiling all the way to the bank as their figures are getting healthier each year. To show how proud they are TelOne broke from tradition by becoming one of the few state enterprises to publish their financials in the media. Coming from a massive $7,8 million loss, they have every reason to celebrate the $480 000 net profit recorded for the year ended June 2015 although revenues have declined sharply which requires them to keep their eyes on the ball.

Of course their margins could have been wider had it not been for the $330 million debt which they inherited from the Postal and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) era. Unfortunately, TelOne is currently reeling under a major subscriber loss of their fixed telephone subscriber, which is currently standing at over 329 000 subscribers from a peak of 340 000 mid last year.

Their revenues dipped from $76 million to $69 million mainly due to the difficult economic environment and the mobile phone business that resulted in many people migrating from fixed telephone.

While Mrs Chipo Mtasa and her team deserve a pat on the back there is need for the company to continue tapping into Internet based services which is a potential revenue earner. The real focus is still within their Broadband, Satellite and Voice which they now need to completely repackage to gain new acceptance.

It is commendable that there is also focus on Vsat because there are thousands of schools in the rural areas that do not have and will never afford fibre or UHF connection hence the Vsat connectivity can still rake in millions if they charge the right price.

The landline is not dead and is still far from dying but if they do not repackage it would soon become obsolete like the call box, which I believe still has a market if properly packaged and marketed.

Today in thousands of people in the US, Europe and even neighbouring South Africa are still queue for call box services and payphones, so why not in Zimbabwe? The future is equally in the cloud, Value Added Services (VAS), Video On Demand (VOD) and Internet of Things (Iot) and many more, these are all open markets which still have to be exploited.

The public Wi-Fi project is also a great initiative and a perfect idea to increase revenue but I believe that focus should not be in the Central Business District but in high density areas where millions are waiting for Wi-Fi to reach their lounge, kitchen, bedrooms.

◆ The writer is the editor for TechnoMag, Zimbabwe`s Premiere Technology Magazine