The Insider is back

The Insider is back with a slicker, new look. It had to suspend publication following frequent shut-downs which made it impossible to predict when the site would be up or down. The break has also allowed us to upgrade the site which is also on a new server.

The shut down has also made the publisher realise how expensive it is to run an online publication from Zimbabwe -something that the government needs to look into seriously if it is genuine about its indigenisation programme.

While it is usually unfair to compare prices from two or three different countries because of the different political and economic situations, sometimes it is the only way to jolt those in power.

TelOne’s charges for broadband are quite reasonable but it is not easily accessible. The mobile phone market is the one dominating communications in Zimbabwe and is widely accessible but the tariffs are too high.

Call rates at times compare favourably with other countries in the region but the internet is just too expensive.

Internet bundles sold by the networks are not just expensive, they do not last especially if you are using a dongle. They start disappearing as soon as you connect while in other countries you use them only when downloading something.

But it is in the bundles that Zimbabwe is way behind from countries like Tanzania for example. One of the leading networks in Zimbabwe was offering for example, five-day bundles with calls costing 10 cents a minute for $1. The rate went down to 9 cents a minute for $2 and 8.7 cents a minute for $5 plus 50 Mb of data. The rate was further reduced to 8.5 cents a minute and 100 Mb of data for $10 and 8.4 cents a minute and 200 Mb of data for $20.

Too my amazement, there was a report that the regulatory authority ordered the network to revert to old tariffs of 25 cents a minute because it said the network was breaching regulations. Shame!

Compare this with Tanzania.

Daily bundles that allow you to phone any network at the same price are as follows:

• Ts399 ($0.25) buys you 8 minutes talk time, plus 100 SMS, plus 25Mb of data
• Ts499 ($0.31) buys you 20 minutes talk time, plus 300 SMS, plus 125Mb
• Ts599 ($0.37) buys you 25 minutes talk time, plus 400 SMS, plus 150Mb
• Ts799 ($0.50) buys you 30 minutes talk time, plus 500 SMS, plus 200Mb
• Ts999 ($0.62) buys you 61 minutes talk time, plus 5 000 SMS, plus 1.5Gb

Weekly bundles go for:

• Ts1 999 ($1.25) buys you 60 minutes talk time plus 700 SMS plus 175 Mb
• Ts2 999 ($1.88) buys you 100 minutes plus 1 400 SMS plus 400 Mb
• TS4 999 ($3.12) buys you 50 minutes plus 5 000 SMS plus 1Gb of data
• Ts5 999 ($3.75) buys you 200 minutes plus 5 000 SMS plus 2Gb

There are also monthly bundles which go like this:

• Ts9 999 ($6.25) buys you 300 minutes plus 700 SMS plus 1Gb
• Ts 19 999 ($12.50) buys you 650 minutes plus 1 400 SMS plus 2Gb
• Ts34 999 ($21.88) buys you 1300 minutes plus 2 800 SMS plus 3Gb

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to open up the networks so that consumers can enjoy such rates? Zimbabwean consumers have been short-changed by mobile networks- and fellow countrymen- for a long time considering that at one time a sim card, that is now free, was so expensive that some people had to sell a beast to get a line?

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