ZOL Increases Internet Prices Once Again

Last year when the economy started its somersault descent, ZOL increased the pricing of their internet packages not once, but twice. Last night’s announcement to the same tune means the Internet Service Provider has now raised prices thrice in less than one year. This time they are owing to this shift to the Monetary Policy Statement and the new pricing will kick in from the first of April.

Packages	USD Price	RTGS$ Price	Gigabytes (GB)
Lite	$29	$72.50	40
Basic	$39.00	$97.50	50
Family	$89	$222.50	100 GB
Family Entertainment	$149	$372.50	Unlimited
Modern Family	$199.00	$497.50	Unlimited
Turbo Pack	$399	847.50	Unlimited

The price change also comes with what ZOL supposes is a deal sweetener as they have increased the data caps for their capped packages. The Lite package will be going from 25GB to 40GB whilst Basic will now be capped at 50GB which is 15GB more than the 35GB customers previously got. Finally, customers on the Family package will now be getting 100GB instead of 75GB.

So how could the deal be sweetened for Unlimited users? Well, customers on unlimited packages will be “eligible to get a FREE Roku device streaming device valued at $110”. There are a couple of problems with this offer. If you don’t want a ROKU box there doesn’t seem to be any other way for you to redeem any value.

Secondly, ZOL has been trying to get rid of these set-top boxes for a while now and they don’t really have that much value to the ISP itself. ZOL tried to get rid of these boxes by discounting them during Black Friday to $59. Mind you that wasn’t US$59 so that should tell you that they have these devices and they want to get them off their hands as soon as possible. ZOL went on to offer these boxes with customers paying monthly instalments of $10-$15 over 12 months. Oh and this was bundled with free iflix subscription for 12 months and now that they are giving these away, it’s safe to assume that people didn’t find that offer as enticing.

The problem I have with this Roku box offer is that for customers to get any value they are going to have to pay additional amounts for Netflix subscriptions and lastly, it will be interesting to see what ZOL will give their uncapped customers in the event that demand for this Roku boxes is actually high and many people claim them and they run out. They are certainly not going to go out of their way and buy one to give it to you at no cost.

It might be time to check out what’s on offer across the border at TelOne…

ZOL

ZOL is one of the biggest internet service providers in Zimbabwe with a growing coverage base which includes most of the country’s major cities such as Harare and Bulawayo. The company provides fibre, VSAT and wireless Internet services to a large range of clients from… Read More About ZOL