The Sunday Mail
Mr Prosper Mutsviri
Zimbabwe’s telecommunications sector has been growing in leaps and bounds with huge investments by the public and the private sector. Power utility the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority consciously decided to venture into the sector in order to leverage some of its, assets which include pylons and power lines. Powertel Communications (Pvt) was born as a result. It became the first company in Zimbabwe to connect to submarine cables and connect to international Internet exchange points – New York, London and Amsterdam – through optic fibre cable using Zesa pylons. Last week, The Sunday Mail Business Reporter Kudakwashe Mutandi caught up with Powertel’s executive director Mr Prosper Mutswiri to talk about how far the company has come and where it is heading.
Q: Powertel has been one of the major players in the telecommunications sector yet it seems little is known of the firm in the market. What products and services does Powertel offer?
A: Powertel Communications is a dynamic innovative and forward-looking organisation offering converged data, voice and fibre and VSat connectivity solutions. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Zesa Holdings Group. PowerTel was licensed as a data services operator in 2000, and in 2009 the scope of its license was upgraded to encompass internet access provision and cross border interconnection with regional operators. The company became the first in Zimbabwe to connect to submarine cables and connect to international Internet exchange points (New York, London, Amsterdam) through optic fibre cable using Zesa pylons. To date, the company has over 7 000km of optic fibre cable in operation countrywide, having a backbone capacity of STM64.
Powertel currently provides products and services encompassing carrier and or bulk data services, VPN, mobile internet, internet bandwidth, and mobile or fixed VoIP services offered over OPGW backbone network and a combination of optic fibre and wireless last mile access.
The mobile internet and mobile VoIP services are offered over a CDMA network. Due to its strategic role and function within the Zesa Group, the organisation now also aggregates and retails the PowerPlus prepaid electricity top-up service.
Q: Last year, the company was ranked the worst in terms of PowerConnect Voice offering . . .
A: Firstly, I would not like to support the notion that we were ranked the worst. We never were the worst. On the back of rolling out a new billing system, we took significantly longer to implement voice interconnectivity with other mobile network operators.
It was a matter of instituting the right systems, processes and agreements to allow us to fully launch voice services to Zimbabwe, which we have since done this year, and (we) are now rolling out more value-added services to complement the 08611 voice offering . . .
We also have the range of smartphones from ZTE that enable you to not only talk but also to surf, download and also tether a wifi hotspot connecting up to five devices.
Q: Critics argue that you have the best infrastructure but you are failing to use it. How do you react to this?
A: As a point to note, Powertel Communications was the first company in Zimbabwe to bring high-speed Internet into the country, and that was in 2010; thus, we are not laggards. In this, Powertel was the first company to have fibre connectivity via Botswana and Mozambique.
Currently, we offer triple redundancy, which gives any business worth mention a lot of confidence in our network and backup support. Further good news is that Powertel has since upgraded its backbone capacity in order to provide reliable internet service to the nation.
It is the prerogative of every corporate to add value to the noble Government policy of empowering the nation as well as developing the economy through the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation.
Contrary to negative reports, unlike any other operator, Powertel is the only operator that has made full use of the existing heritage infrastructure to invest in fibre backbone (OPGW) and to rollout fibre through stringing onto the Zesa pylons.
We also boast being the only Licensed Internet Access Provider that has spread wings to small towns and selected remote areas in terms of service access. Powertel continues to provide backbone support to other telecommunications operators in Zimbabwe.
Q: Whats your take on Government’s drive to promote infrastructure sharing among telecommunication companies?
A: Powertel was the first company in Zimbabwe to connect to submarine cables and connect to international Internet exchange points through optic fibre cable. The OPGW backbone network is interconnected regionally to Botswana and Mozambique, thus, making us the first company to offer high speed internet into the country and offer carrier service to businesses in Zimbabwe.
Our service offering, Powertel Carrier Service has enabled us to lease high capacity bandwidth to other telecommunications operators, Internet Access Poviders and ISP businesses, making us the ‘Carrier of Carriers’, and we proudly remain so to this day. Sharing of infrastructure is thus part of who we are, our DNA in capacitating other operators to rollout their products and services.
Therefore, Powertel has been sharing infrastructure since its inception and it is in full support of Government and Potraz (Postal Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe) initiatives for infrastructure sharing.
Q: What is your current penetration rate?
A: It would be a bit too early to talk about penetration rate as we only fully rolled out voice service in March 2015. We are however impressed with the uptake of the voice service since launch with thousands having connected.
Q: What value does the PowerConnect Voice Mobile offering add to the everyday mobile phone subscriber in Zimbabwe
A: Knowing that as people, we love to talk and save, our voice service comes at an unbelievably affordable calling tariff of 5 cents per minute for calls within our network and eight cents per minute for calls made across networks.
The voice service is complemented by the range of CDMA devices suitable for business, home (family) and individual use. These allow for flexibility of use wherever you are and whenever, as long as we have network presence in that area, which is in most urban centres of Zimbabwe.
Q: Of your current product offering, which would you say is your fastest growing product or service in terms of popularity with the market?
A: The issue of popularity and markets require clear definition as our market encompasses businesses, including SMEs, Government and the consumer. Thus different products will have appeal to each respective segment. For business and Government, we have products that appeal including Powertel Virtual Private Networking and Powertel Corporate Internet.
On the SMEs and consumer aspect, Powertel has since 2007 when we launched the real 3G service on the mobile broadband witnessed tremendous growth for the PowerConnect mobile broadband service.
With the advent of Powerplus Prepaid Electricity, we have seen interesting growth as the service undoubtedly has national appeal as it is all about unlocking convenience to prepaid electricity top up service.
We have through our network managed to unveil multiple channels for people to topup their prepaid electricity online, at bank ATM, through mobile devices, within supermarkets and also at various outlets dotted around the country.
Q: But how has Powertel managed to differentiate itself from the competition in the market?
A: As you have mentioned above, it is about diversity of our products and services offering. We have named it convergence, where all your essential services are conveniently available for you under one roof.
