Business / Companies
Zimbabwe's new mobile operator, Spiritage, to deploy 4G WiMAX
21 Jun 2011 at 01:14hrs | Views
Encouraged by earlier successful African 4G projects, the start-up Spiritage is about to enter the data and voice telephony network market in Zimbabwe and plans to take on its competitors. For over a decade, the Zimbabwean market has been held by two companies: Econet (70 percent of the market with 5.5 million subscribers) and Orascom (30 percent of the market through the owning of Telecel and Net*One). However, Spiritage shows fierce intentions to help the African Continent join the digital market.
The company aims at launching its 4G WiMAX network as soon as this month, following the acceptance of interconnection agreements with other operators by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ). An initial investment of $25 million and the issue by the POTRAZ of an Internet Access Provider (IPA) Licence in May will allow Spiritage to offer data, SMS and voice telephony services. When asked about their objectives, the start-up's CEO, Zachary Wazara says "We are targeting to make broadband cheaper and easily accessible to more people".
Spiritage believes in the success of this project based on valuable assets that they claim to have. Apparently 500,000 customers have already joined the network during an early pilot phase and the company's technology coupled with fibre optics would drastically reduce the costs (from $2,400 per megabyte to $400). Also, Spiritage will be delivering 4G connectivity to the largest network of the country, covering main cities like Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Gweru and more to come. The company's CEO commented "there's no IAP that has a network as extensive as ours. We'll be so much bigger it will be very difficult for anyone to compete in that area."
Zimbabwe's mobile penetration is growing rapidly (10 percent by the beginning of 2009, 40 percent by the end of the same year and about 57 percent nowadays) and gaining new customers means that they decide to switch from their current operator to Spiritage. The extra-low prices that Spiritage advertised should induce a mobile price war in Zimbabwe, but will this be enough to persuade the customers and ensure the company's growth?
The company aims at launching its 4G WiMAX network as soon as this month, following the acceptance of interconnection agreements with other operators by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ). An initial investment of $25 million and the issue by the POTRAZ of an Internet Access Provider (IPA) Licence in May will allow Spiritage to offer data, SMS and voice telephony services. When asked about their objectives, the start-up's CEO, Zachary Wazara says "We are targeting to make broadband cheaper and easily accessible to more people".
Zimbabwe's mobile penetration is growing rapidly (10 percent by the beginning of 2009, 40 percent by the end of the same year and about 57 percent nowadays) and gaining new customers means that they decide to switch from their current operator to Spiritage. The extra-low prices that Spiritage advertised should induce a mobile price war in Zimbabwe, but will this be enough to persuade the customers and ensure the company's growth?
Source - goingwimax
