HARARE: Telone has raked in $72 million in revenue in the first half of the year and is targeting to collect $80 million in the second half of 2015, an official has said.
In an emailed response to NewsDay, TelOne corporate communications manager Melody Harry said for the first half of the year, TelOne has been able to commence most of its projects planned for the year.
Key over the period, she said, has been the rebranding exercise, which has been a huge success in helping to reposition the company as a telecommunications giant.
“The company also launched the Public Wi-fi service which has revolutionised the broadband space,” she said.
“To date, the service is up in 70 sites in Harare, Bulawayo, Masvingo, Mutare, Bindura, Victoria Falls and Hwange. At least 100 other sites are currently being worked on and are expected to be live soon.”
Harry said the fibre deployment also gained momentum with the launch of the Fibre to the Home service. She said since the unveiling of the Fibre to the Home, TelOne has completed deployments in Zimre Park, Mainway Meadows, Mt Pleasant Heights, Westgate Area D, Tynwald North, Knowe (Norton), Turf Village in Ngezi and Mimosa Park in Zvishavane.
“These areas have a combined capacity to connect 15 000 homes. Fibre to the Home (FTTH) footprint is being expanded to cover more suburbs in Harare and spreading the service to Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare and Masvingo”.
“Beyond the current coverage, we intend to have FTTH footprint to be spread to other cities like Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare and Masvingo. Backbone coverage is being expanded to cover Bulawayo-Beitbridge, Mutare-Nyanga, Harare-Nyamapanda and the Lowveld,” she said.
Harry said TelOne was going into Value Added Services in a big way. She said a lot of work had already started and “we will be unpacking this soon”
“This is expected to complement the work that we are doing of digitalising some of our exchanges, upgrading them from analogue to digital exchanges in order to offer our clients world-class value added services such as conference calling, call diversion, interactive video response and ADSL Broadband,” she said.
To date, Harry said, TelOne has upgraded Mazowe, Rusape, Plumtree, Nyanga, Karoi, Kariba and Chipinge on top of the major towns and cities, which were already running on digital exchanges.
Prepaid voice service for households was now also available in these areas, she said.
Harry said the company has engaged National University of Science and Technology (NUST) with a view to forging a partnership for innovation. Through this collaborative arrangement, TelOne was hoping to benefit from the numerous research papers produced by university students and academic staff.
TelOne and NUST recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a framework for research collaboration activities aimed at increasing growth in the information communication technology sector. The two also signed an MoU for the establishment of a BSc Honours degree in Telecommunications Engineering at its Centre for Learning.
The addition of a degree programme, according to Harry, would give credibility to the centre as well as bolster the curriculum at the centre thereby turning it into a premier ICT and telecommunications training institution.
