Easycall customers find it’s impossible to call

HARARE — Cellular network service in Zimbabwe has plunged to new depths, at least for state cellular company NetOne as customers fail to recharge their phones.

Despite buying recharge cards for the NetOne prepaid service, ironically called Easycall, subscribers have over the past 48 hours been unable to get any airtime credit so that they can make calls as the recharge system is down. Those who attempt to recharge continuously received a frustrating reply: “SMS recharge failure”. 

NetOne issued an announcement stating: “We would like to advise our valued Easycall customers that our recharging system is currently down due to a technical fault. Our engineers are currently working tirelessly to resolve the situation.

“Please be advised that this is purely a technical fault and that there is no need to return recharge cards to dealers as they will be functional as soon as the fault is rectified.”

It is unclear how soon that will be.

When called by this writer posing as a subscriber whose cellphone would not recharge, a worker confirmed the problem.

“Do not worry, we have a technical problem but our engineers are working on it. I can’t promise you when they will be through, but just keep trying (to recharge). The problem is being experienced countrywide.

NetOne, created from the unbundling of the Posts and Telecommunications (PTC) parastatal, is the country’s largest cellular network in terms of coverage, but offers the worst service of the country’s three networks. It is extremely difficult to connect to a NetOne cellular subscriber, let alone send a message.

Last month NetOne said it was losing billions of dollars due to vandalism of its base stations by “unscrupulous individuals”. Consequently, it said, the organisation’s drive to expand network coverage had been shelved as some of its base stations are no longer operational due to theft.

 “The quality of service provided by NetOne is compromised due to congestion arising from base stations going off air. Vandalism results in electricity interruptions to base stations and, consequently, interruption of mobile telecommunication service,” it said.

The country’s three cellular network service providers, NetOne, Econet and Telecel have all come under fire from the public for expanding their subscriber base at a time when service is poor due to congested networks. They in turn partly blame the constant power cuts, which they say leaves those base stations in areas where there is power carrying an extra load, resulting in congestion.

The recharge failure is likely to compromise NetOne’s efforts to improve its service as much revenue will be lost.