Slow data is the complaint every Econet customer has made at some point, and the usual assumption is that the network is congested. Econet now says that for a large number of people the problem is in their own pocket: a worn-out SIM card, or a phone that has been manually set to stay on 2G or 3G.
The company says it only found this out because it pointed artificial intelligence tools at its own network data. It is an interesting claim and it comes with a free fix, but it also arrives with numbers that don't quite agree with each other and no independent check. Here is what we know.
What Econet has said
In a note to shareholders reported by Business Times and The Herald at the end of September, group chief executive Dr Douglas Mboweni said AI analysis had identified thousands of customers with faulty SIM cards or phones manually set to the wrong network speed.
"We did not realise the scale of this problem until our AI tools identified it," he said. Customers had already been coming into Econet shops for help, he added, and the company expected to sort out everyone affected within a few weeks.
The same note listed other things the tools had flagged. Almost 60 percent of network faults were linked to power, which prompted a national programme to put solar panels and batteries at base stations and a plan to commission the company's own power plant in February. Faults that used to take hours to trace can now be found in minutes. And keeping the older 2G and 3G networks running was limiting how much congestion Econet could relieve, because those networks occupy frequencies it wants for faster ones. The response has been to buy more 4G and 5G base stations and begin retiring 3G.
TechnoMag's Ross Moyo, writing on 2 October, explained why a handset setting can go unnoticed for years. An operator can spend heavily on 4G and 5G coverage, he noted, but a phone set to "WCDMA only", which is another name for 3G, will never use it.
The numbers don't quite match
A month earlier Mboweni had described the same discovery in much bigger terms. In remarks carried by CITE and Business Times on 28 August, he said Econet had found "more than a million handsets" configured at the wrong speed, stopping customers from properly using services such as TikTok and YouTube.
More than a million in August and thousands in September are very different figures. It may be that the first counted every handset on a slow setting and the second counted only those with faults worth a shop visit, but Econet has not explained the gap, and both figures come from the company alone. We found no data from the regulator, POTRAZ, or from an independent tester to confirm either one.
The timelines differ as well. The few weeks Mboweni mentioned applies to the SIM and settings problem. The broader list of issues the AI tools raised has a target of June next year.
How to check your own phone
You don't need to wait for a message from Econet. The exact wording differs between phones, but the setting is in the same place on most of them.
On Android: open Settings, go to Network and internet or Connections, then Mobile network, then Preferred network type or Network mode. Choose the option that includes 4G or LTE, or 5G if your phone and area support it, and pick the automatic version if there is one, for example "5G/4G/3G/2G auto". If it says "3G only", "WCDMA only" or "2G only", that is the problem Econet is describing.
On iPhone: open Settings, tap Mobile Data, then Mobile Data Options, then Voice and Data, and choose 4G, LTE or 5G Auto.
People often switch to 3G or 2G on purpose, to save battery or to hold a signal in places where 4G is weak, and then forget. If you live somewhere with poor 4G coverage, the automatic setting lets the phone fall back when it needs to.
If the setting is already right and your data is still slow everywhere, an old SIM card may be the cause. Econet says its shops are diagnosing and replacing these at no charge. It is worth taking your ID with you.
Why this matters more once 3G goes
The setting is a small thing today and a bigger one soon. In its half-year results on 2 October, Econet said the 3G network will be retired once the remaining customers have moved to 4G, and that it is working on ways to make 4G handsets more affordable.
For anyone with a phone locked to 3G, that means a quick settings change now saves a dead connection later. For anyone whose phone can only do 3G, it means a new handset, and the results statement gives no date and no detail on what help will be offered. In a market where a phone is often kept until it stops working, that is the group to watch.
The bigger AI push, and a sceptical voice
The SIM story is one piece of a much larger effort. Econet says it has hired more than 100 engineers for its AI unit, is running over 20 AI projects, and through its sister company Cassava has access to Nvidia computing power. It has launched a Shona voice assistant called Yamurai and a paid service called ecoAI Token that bundles access to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Mistral.
Not everyone is convinced by the consumer side. Techzim's L.S.M Kabweza tried ecoAI Token in August and praised how easy it was to sign up and pay, then asked why anyone would use it. The cheapest bundle, 10 cents for a day, gave him 5,000 tokens that were gone in two messages. The service had no free tier, while the AI companies it resells all offer one, and its models were not the latest versions. His conclusion was that he personally had no need for it yet.
That contrast is the useful way to read all of this. Where AI is being used inside the network, to find faults faster, cut diesel use at towers, which sister company Econet InfraCo says is down 30 percent, and spot badly configured phones, the benefits are plausible and you would feel them as fewer outages and faster data. Where it is being sold back to customers as a product, the case is weaker so far.
For now the practical step costs nothing. Check the setting, and if your data is still slow, ask for a SIM swap. If your speeds improve, Econet's AI was right about you. If they don't, the problem is still on their side of the mast.
Sources
- AI helping Econet improve customer experience, Business Times
- AI helping Econet improve customer experience, The Herald
- Econet's AI Finds Thousands On Wrong Network Speed, Launches Free SIM And Settings Fix In Shops, TechnoMag
- AI helps Econet improve customer service, CITE
- Econet reports 21pc revenue growth as AI adoption, digital services gather momentum, The Herald
- Econet InfraCo slashes diesel consumption by 30% using Ai, CITE
- Econet launches ecoAI Token, taking the Data Bundles concept to AI, Techzim
Researched and drafted with the help of AI tools, then fact-checked and edited by our team. How we work.
