Econet Wireless Apologises For Network Issues In Past Week
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe has issued an apology for the network issues that occurred over the past week.
The company’s chief operating officer, Kezito Makuni, stated that the problems were caused by power outages at their National Operations Centre (NOC) in Harare.
He added that the issues have been fully resolved, and the company regrets any inconvenience caused to their customers. Makuni said:
We sincerely regret the challenges that our customers experienced over the past week, which were precipitated by power outages at our National Operations Centre (NOC) in Harare.
The power outages, which unfortunately and uncharacteristally occurred twice – last Tuesday afternoon (May 9, 2023) and later in the week on Friday evening (May 12, 2023) – triggered multiple failures on our voice, SMS, EcoCash, mobile data, VAS (third-party value added services) and on our recharge platforms, resulting in customers failing to access these services.
The Tuesday downtime, which lasted for about 5 hours, did not affect mobile data services. Unfortunately, when we suffered the second power outage on Friday – which brought down our backup power units – that is when most of our customers struggled to access our mobile data services, with the problem finally being resolved on Monday this week.
Regrettably, it took our engineers and vendors (equipment suppliers) much longer than anticipated, even as they worked around the clock, to resolve the challenges because it involved replacing some imported, damaged equipment and reconfiguring the nodes to enable resumption of normal service.
We have since moved to deploy additional backup power and monitoring equipment as well as additional redundancy on our NOC to further reduce the chances of the incidents which took place over the past week from recurring.
Makuni confirmed that their service platforms are now stable and being monitored to maintain a normal customer experience.
He apologised to Econet’s customers for the inconvenience and assured them that the company takes its responsibility of facilitating their businesses and relationships seriously.
The impact of Econet network failure in Zimbabwe can be significant, as Econet is the largest mobile network operator in the country.
Network failures caused disruptions in communication and connectivity, affecting businesses, individuals, and emergency services. This can lead to financial losses, missed opportunities, and in some cases, even a threat to health and safety.
Due to the network outage experienced by Econet, other mobile network operators, particularly NetOne, gained customers. This led to an increase in the prices of SIM cards sold by vendors, from the official price of $1 to $3.
