Apologies flood market as communication networks fail

They're spiced up with humorous lines like “Down but not out”, or the artistic one from clothes retailer, Truworths, saying, “we want you to stay in touch and style”, offering clients the option of calling on the mobile numbers if they can't visit offices.

Until you read the apologies “for the inconvenience this may cause” that always sit at the bottom of the adverts, you would think the companies are enjoying it.

A newspaper notice by chartered accountants, PriceWaterHoouseCoopers, last week said the company's “normal telephone lines are repeatedly down” due to frequent power interruptions and regular telecommunication failures”.

“Consequently, our external email routing services have also been affected,” the firm said.

PowerTel Communications, with the biggest cable network in the country, is equally despondent, and apologises to “valued customers for the difficulties experienced in accessing Internet and email through the PowerConnent service.”

The company names the predictable culprit, power outages!

Now, TelOne, the monopolistic fixed-line service provider, is noticing the increasing agitation coming from the increasing traffic of “apology adverts”, but is blaming the rains for poor service delivery.

“There has been a marked increase in the number of faults and TelOne is finding it more difficult to maintain and restore telecommunication services,” said Colin Wilbesi, the parastatal's acting public relations executive.

It's the rain causing water seepages into underground cables, and much more: “Trees falling on cables during the (rain) period are common,” Wilbesi says.

The faults on TelOne's data lines have almost grounded banking services, and Wilbesi said banks would be attended to more “expeditiously” than any other institution, but there is also the issue of power.

“In addition, some areas are going without electricity for long periods. In the absence of electricity, some of our telephone exchanges use diesel generators and of late there has not been a steady supply of diesel resulting in some exchanges shutting down completely until electricity has been restored,” Wilbesi points out.

However, for the struggling corporate institutions and individuals, being offered the option of a mobile phone dial-up isn't something to bring a smile on the face.

The three mobile networks in the country are congested, and it's taking 10 or more attempts to get through to a mobile number.

You get that irritating message that the dialled number is not available, or that the network is busy. The reason, says Econet Wireless Limited chief executive officer, Douglas Mboweni, is that Zimbabweans are busy on the phone, with an ordinary individual taking up to 200 minutes a month on the phone, against international averages of 40 minutes per month in the developed world.

That's because calls are too cheap in the country, he says.

However, if the ground line fails, traffic obviously increases on the mobile networks, and base stations are too few to cope with increasing calls, resulting in congested networks.

Reward Kangai, of the state-owned NetOne cellular network, acknowledges customers are having a nightmare calling on mobile numbers.

“NetOne is aware of problems being experienced by its customers most of these being associated with congestion,” he says.

NetOne isn't blaming the rains, but vandalism of base stations which also has greatly affected operations at sister firm, TelOne. And there's another bigger culprit… foreign currency.

The networks all say they have no foreign currency to import equipment for expansion to reduce congestion on the networks.

Econet says it has even failed to get foreign cash allocations from the government to import spying equipment required under the controversial Interception of Communication Act.

Perhaps, once that is in place, people will talk less, scared big brother has started listening to their calls.