The country’s largest mobile network operator, Econet yesterday launched its 5G service in Bulawayo at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF2022). This was at the company’s very impressive ZITF2022 installation which dwarfed what was in the main hall, we even started chucking figures, guessing as to how much Econet paid to reserve such a large space. Anyway, after we got a tour of what the staff called “the Econet Experience“, the MNO launched its 5G service.
You can check out the Econet 5G event as well as a tour of their ZITF2022 installation with the player below. Alternatively, you can watch it directly on YouTube with the link here.https://www.youtube.com/embed/bcVl3Ih49TQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
So for those who might not know, Econet already has a 5G base station at Avondale and the launch of their Bulawayo installation was much the same as what we saw in Harare. In the demonstration, we got yesterday the live test registered speeds of 1.1Gbps and they were able to download a 2.5 GB game in 25 seconds.
Impressive speeds, but this is similar to what we witnessed at the Harare launch. The only difference between the Econet’s 5G events in Harare and Bulawayo is that the former is running Ericsson equipment and the latter is using ZTE. Since the 5G hardware is being added to existing base stations, they have to match the brand of equipment on the site, which for the ZITF site is ZTE.
As for 5G base stations, there are 6 that are already live in the city of kings. If you want to give it a spin you can go to the following sites:
- Econet Shop
- NSSA House
- ZITF
- NRZ
- Anchor House
- Rainbow Hotel-techzim