Zimbabwe, a land locked country bordering South Africa, is now getting ready to introduce voice-over-IP (VoIP) services to the residents of the country. Zimbabwe’s principal mobile company Econet Wireless will launch the VoIP service on Thursday at an event in Harare, the largest city in the country.

According to TECHZim reporter L.S.M Kabweza, “This has come as a surprise and we’re quite curious and excited to see what exactly Econet will unveil tomorrow.” The reporter is planning to provide live updates via Twitter (News - Alert).

Kabweza wrote that he is trying to get some detailed information from sources, but so far what he has learned is that “Econet will launch a VoIP service that will let subscribers use their ordinary 077 mobile phone numbers.” However, according to the report, it is not clear how that process will work.

While there were many service scenarios provided by the TECHZim report, Kabweza believes it could be an independent (of 077) VoIP service bundled with Econet’s broadband service targeting businesses. Kabweza wrote that Econet has, via Data Control (Ecoweb), the needed license to offer such a service. Hence, “it’s still a possibility,” according to Kabweza.

Since VoIP service will disrupt the traditional GSM and fixed telephony services, especially for long distance calls, the reporter is not clear how this transformation from GSM to VoIP is going to enable Econet to increase revenues in the short term.

On a positive note, the reporter was hoping that any savings on the long distance calls due to VoIP technology will be passed on to the subscribers.

Econet Wireless is Zimbabwe's principal mobile company and was established by the Zimbabwean businessman, Strive Masiyiwa, according to Wikipedia. It is now the nation's largest cell phone network company with 73.3 percent of the market share. The company also operates networks in Lesotho, Botswana, Burundi, United Kingdom and Kenya.

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