TELONE UNVEILING A NEW LOOK

Time for a new experience? - TelOne is doing away with its old identity and is unveiling a new look.

Time to experience something different? – TelOne is doing away with its old identity and is unveiling a new look.

Any 2015 conversation around ADSL technology always has the same undertone. A lot of people, learned or otherwise, think the tech belongs to the 1980s. To be honest, in the face of rapidly changing communications standards and delivery options it’s hard to bring up colonial copper cabling solutions which just don’t sound sexy.

This is a bit of a challenge for an operator like TelOne that has the distinction of being the Number 1 only local provider of ADSL broadband in an environment where the internet is experienced through mobile phones first, and fixed internet also means WiMAX solutions from every other competitor.

To its credit, TelOne has been trying a lot to adapt to everything around it. The highlight of all this will be showcased tomorrow evening. TelOne is unveiling two new products along with a new corporate identity.

According to information from reliable sources, TelOne is introducing its network of WiFi hot spots around Harare, dubbed Metro City WiFi. These WiFi hot spots are meant to give TelOne an access point to mobile broadband subscribers that already form a clear majority of internet users in Zimbabwe.

The second new product will be the TelOne Fibre to the Home (FTTH) service that has been a major focus of TelOne’s efforts of being an Internet-First operator.

The new brand identity is what TelOne has been teasing in print adverts this past week and will be represented by a new logo that we will see for the first time tomorrow night.

No doubt all of this sounds exciting for a host of reasons. The Fibre to the Home product is coming into a market that is being led by Liquid and ZOL, the force behind the ZOL Fibroniks package that is meant to make Fibre a reality for Zimbabweans with a $39 entry package as well as the most extensive fibre network in the country whose density is remarkable when compared to other countries in Africa.

TelOne currently sits on the second largest fibre network in Zimbabwe and has been offering somewhat reasonable pricing for its ADSL package. The hope is that this same competitiveness will extend to its fibre service.

At the same time, the Metro City WiFi service gives TelOne a shot at competing with mobile telecoms operators, something that it hasn’t been able to execute with a mobile network operator licence that it never used.

Hopefully TelOne will compete aggressively in terms of service delivery and not just pricing.