According to a
notice in the Herald, state-owned mobile network operator Netone has
applied for a national datacasting licence from the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe.The datacasting licence is one of ten
broadcasting licences offered by the regulator.
Image courtesy of TECHZIM
Datacasting, or the
broadcast of data, is a service that delivers information via radio
waves in varied forms which include text, data, speeches and images
to any receiver or equipment that can accept or process the
information.
It usually works in
the distribution on topical information in fields that can be as
varied as traffic updates, weather, health, education and even
retailing.This looks like part of Netone’s efforts at improving
their performance by providing a wider range of product services.
Currently every network operator needs to and has been making
attempts at expanding its product range beyond the declining voice
call offering.
NetOne’s two
competitors Econet and Telecel have been aggressively pushing data
centric OTT services that include WhatsApp bundles and different
Facebook promotions, lines of service which NetOne hasn’t offered
on its own network. It has however been engaged in mobile money
services which have provided a healthy revenue stream for local
telecoms.
NetOne is likely to
be leaning on its relationships with Chinese hardware and telecoms
infrastructure giants Huawei in the roll out of this service.Huawei
is already tapped to pick up Netone’s $218 million broadband
expansion project which will focus on equipment upgrade and LTE
service provision.
No comments:
Post a Comment