MAP > Internet Providers in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s telecoms regulator as well as the broadcasting authority ready to merge the Zimbabwe’s economy has experienced the downturn since fractious elections of the 2013 July that resulted in the significant fall in the GDP growth. Contribution to the GDP from telecom sector has been on the fall steadily, and as a result, this sector revenue has been able to come under pressure from quite a number of the recent regulatory measures as well as the taxes that got to be imposed by cash strapped government. Nevertheless, the telecom sector has shown some promises, in particular from mobile sector where the mobile penetration is on the rise, reaching 116% by the year 2018.

Three mobile network operators, namely the NetOne, Econet Wireless, and the Telecel Zimbabwe progress to invest in the network upgrades to support the data services and the fast-expanding m-banking facilities and the m-commerce. The Telecel got to be acquired by government from the VEON as well as the financial demands needed for the investment has been able to jeopardize the resources potentially available to incumbent the telco TelOne, that was formerly PTC, that still holds the defacto on the fixed line services in this country.

The limitations in the international bandwidth for landlocked country for very many years held back the development of internet as well as the broadband sectors, but there has been a change in the fiber optic links to the several submarine cables which have been created via the neighboring territories. Expansion of the 3G mobile broadband utilities countrywide and more recent efforts to offer the LTE services means that the over half of the population now can easily access the internet. First commercial LTE services got to be launched in the year 2013 while the investment in the LTE technologies for which regulator has been able to assign the spectrum in 700MHz band, progresses.

Also, in the mid-2018, the government has considered the issuance of a technology-neutral license in the bid to be able to encourage investment in the telecom sector. Good amount of progress has continued to be made in the rolling out of the national fiber backbone networks, that facilitated by government efforts to be able to encourage the network infrastructure sharing. The limitations on the international bandwidth have been gradually being addressed with the bandwidth available to the ISPs, increased very sharply. Well, this has reduced the cost of broadband services and has catalyzed growth in some broadband subscribers.