Tonderai Rutsito Tech Talk
It’s been a long break since last year, and I’m excited to join you once again this year as we look back at the most exciting developments, which shaped our technological landscape.

The greatest technological development for Zimbabwe last year was intensifying of the laying and capacitating of technological infrastructure and bringing it into people’s home.

Liquid Telecom led the way in July 2013 when their managing director Mr Wellington Makamure announced the first Fibre to home (FTH) project with a ground breaking offer of free connectivity to any household which is within a 5km radius of the cable via their ISP, Zimbabwe Online ZOL.

The offer, which was meant to bring in new clients, was first made to people and business in Borrowdale, Balgravia, Kensington, Avondale and Milton Park suburbs while those staying in the high density areas were promised wifi zones, though they are yet to be established.

TelOne also embarked on its fibre to home project building on its successful completion of the Mutare to Vicfalls fibre link in 2013

Powertel, a subsidiary of ZESA also came in silently to command a large space of the terrestrial developments interconnecting mainly the state owned parastatals and private players across the nation.

Powertel also commenced a fibre to home project with a focus on the low density areas and managed to cash in heavily on most Universities outside Harare, creating a niche market for the brand.

Telco, a relatively quiet Internet Access Provider with a strong base with the banking sector extended their fibre optic in the industrial areas and came out much more visible at the end of the year, heavily pushing their presence with fibre work in progress for both commercial and home use.

Dandemutande, continued to sail through after indicating intentions to connect to the Seacom last mile but their ISP, UMAX made more noise.

It initially appeared to be a force to reckon with due to their super fast Wimax Connectivity packages before congestion reduced them to a standard ISP in Zimbabwe

On ISPs, ZOL a subsidiary of Liquid Telecom made noise with its Fibronics packages, a fairly priced data package starting from $89 per month for 5mb which they slashed to $39 per month at entry cost.

Yo Africa, probably one of Zimbabwe`s most reliable Internet Service Provider jumped on the fibre bandwagon offering reasonable connectivity packages while they also run on the Liquid back bone infrastructure.

After branding from Mweb, Iway Africa, managed to stay afloat bouncing back on the market from the being the early powerhouse brand of dial up service provider to the Internet Service provider of Choice to many as they managed to retain their elite clientele base for years a tactic they have successfully used for survival.

Africom grew steadily on wireless connectivity though relatively quiet, one of their major stakeholder NSSA had initially spoke on serious infrastructure development to give them a broader alternative outside their satellite based and Wimax transmission.

Zarnet, an Internet Service Provider running under the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services was relatively quiet on the fibre connectivity, though it has the connectivity options via TelOne, it also made noise with their focus on VSat and UHF for remote connectivity

Other players like Aquiva, came to the fore front but may have suffered some blows from the giant ISPs who are direct beneficiaries of their parent Internet Access Providers, as they have the flexibility to heavily drop prices.

Internationally access to the internet has become a right not a luxury. Most gadgets and humans now heavily depend on the Internet Protocol pushing the mainstream of IPv6 as demand for dedicated connectivity continues to soar.

2015 is a new year and we look forward to what is in store as the battle lines now shift from infrastructure laying to actual capacitating and service provision amongst most players who are completing major fibre roll outs.

 ◆ The Writer is the Editor of TechnoMag, Zimbabwe’s Premiere Technology Magazine, More In depth from www.technomag.co.zw or on http://technom.ag/de follow us on Twitter at TechnoMagZw follow us on www.facebook.com/technomagzw

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