Rejoice Ngwenya in his latest article entitled the 3G Revolution That Never Was reckons that Zimbabwean corporates like Econet are taking their customers for granted. Read more from Rejoice . . .

One of Zimbabwe’s leading transnational blue chip telecommunication companies, ECONET, is once again promising the local market a miraculous transformation of the country’s Information Communication Technology [ICT]. For several years, the ambitious Strive Masiyiwa-owned enterprise has been trumpeting molten corporate lava on new 3rd Generation platform [3G], spending thousands of dollars in the process to seek attention from habitually technology-averse Zimbabweans. A massive excavation along Zimbabwe’s main trunk road is now been backed with more promises of memorable fibre optic 4G revolution.

If customer satisfaction was measured per capita of advertising and promotional ad spend, ECONET would probably be running out of space on the human utility scale! There are those who argue that a proliferation of ninety base stations in ninety days to support a two million plus subscriber base is the ultimate symbol of success, not to mention high share prices, exciting dividends and healthy bottom line. Others also insist that a company that has a hundred square metre full colour billboards at every major intersection in every major town is a symbol of marketing excellence. No doubt there are similar such experiences across the length and breadth of the African continent. Unfortunately, I am not convinced that market dominance is a precursor to customer satisfaction; rather, it evolves into irritating monopolistic behaviour.

The global corporate graveyard is littered with big spend ventures whose customer satisfaction index – for want of a term – is no higher than the intelligence quotient [IQ] of the cockroach hiding in a dark corner of your laptop case. At one time, it was impossible to send short message services [SMS] on Fridays through the ECONET network, let alone make a call. Their engineers, as expected, had a perfect explanation. Subscriber rates, they mourned, were literally controlled by business-hostile central government regulators, so much so that the use of local Zimbabwe dollar currency rendered sustainable service delivery impossible. The market accepted the explanation, and waited with abated breadth for the day when the nervous ZANU-PF government would allow use of ‘foreign’ currency in local transactions. I remember – ironically with a tinge of trepidation and amusement – that my account was arbitrarily ‘converted’ to pay-as-you-go for reasons only known to the late Egyptian Tutankhamen. My and every account holder’s protests fell on deaf, highly-paid electronic ears.

As fate would have it, we are almost two years into the multicurrency use, but I am yet to experience a ‘phenomenal rise’ in service delivery. When wireless internet provision became fashionable, competition from ‘fixed’ broadband pioneers like Zimbabwe Online ‘inspired’ ECONET to go one up by introducing the mobile 3G ‘dongle’ connect card internet browsers that were billed to take Zimbabwe business a notch up in regional ICT competitiveness. As expected, these promises were bankrolled with expensive promotions and fanfare, and those like me whose survival solely depends on mobile web-based activism, fell to our knees and showered praises to the galaxies. As it turns out, the prayers were premature.

Many months after I and perhaps thousands of other techno-freaks fell into the 3G promotional trap, we are still to experience the beauty of the ECONET ‘inspired’ ICT revolution. Compared to US1 [one United States Dollar] per thirty minutes that ‘fixed’ broadband service providers charge in public internet shops, or the US20 or so dollars levied for a miserly 100 megabytes, I quickly moved onto the USD25 per month unlimited access offered by ECONET’s miracle dongle. This was a gigantic error of judgement, on my part.

For the ten or so months I have been ‘hooked’ to this much heralded 3G system, I can access my internet only an average of two hours per week. On several occasions, I have met my colleagues-in-despair at ECONET HQ, seeking answers from arrogant, stoned-faced young technicians more interested in showing off their latest i-tuners to bamboozled school girls. I have tried to scream, but my voice chokes with anger, and I can only have just enough energy to wobble down the stairs with nothing but a bruised ego.

In the past few weeks, my misery has been incremental, as expected, compounded with a perfect explanation from ECONET that the fibre optic project is ‘interfering’ with our access and that all will be well once the cables are buried! To date, I have probably lost a couple of exciting activist deals due to my lack of communication, never mind the mental stress of dealing with a technology beyond one’s control. Sometimes, as I do now, I feel local ECONET engineers should be rounded up and thrown into an ICT dungeon filled with archaic Olympia typewriters, Moss code, telex, Gestetner machines and discarded valve-type black and white television sets where their reputation can assume a comparative semblance of respectability – that is if they survive drowning in volumes of black duplicating inks, scarlet correction fluids and used machine oils!

The question essentially is: why do ‘successful’ corporates take us customers for granted? Toyota International had a rude awakening, so did British Petroleum. I call it corporate stupor. At a certain stage, the blue chippers get drunk and choke in their own success, paralysed by exciting financial results and moribund with self praise that only immunises them from customer sensitivity. I cannot recall how many cars Toyota had to recall, or how many millions litres of oil BP has so far spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, but my wish is that companies like MTM or CellTel waltz into the Zimbabwe market to give these overzealous chip-on-the-shoulder  players like ECONET a f*****g whipping. Just perhaps, perhaps I might be able to open my Yahoo without having to sing the Khoisan desert anthem 100 times over in Latin. I am a stickler for free market competition, even if I have to lose a network I have been hooked since July 1998. Thus I am agitated by market dominance that has manifestations of monopolistic behaviour. Ninety base stations in ninety days my black a**! Jeeper’s creepers, just give me only one base station in three hundred and sixty five days that WORKS and we will be lifelong pals, Mr Masiyiwa!

Here’s another reason why state-controlled media should be boycotted. Below is an email we recently received from a Kubatana subscriber living in the south of Zimbabwe.

I’m aware that Kubatana’s correspondence with the public ended on 31 May 2010 but since COPAC has postponed outreach dates for Bulawayo, then this petition still applies. This is a plea on a personal level and petition on behalf of millions of people in Bulawayo and the South-South Western part of Zimbabwe who have no access to newspapers or simply cannot afford them.

For the Constitution making outreach programme to be meaningful to Zimbabweans, you will agree that we need to be constantly educated and informed on issues that affect us with regard to the laws of the land. In my view, radio is the cheapest, most effective medium of mass communication with the broadest coverage reaching even the simplest man on the street. With this in mind, please allow me to detail my grievance against ZBC.

Since 3 April 2010, there has been a breakdown in transmission of SFM radio and National FM Radio in the above mentioned areas. This was after an initial breakdown from 29 February 2010 to 1 March 2010 which was rectified after 3 days.

SFM airs programmes on the judicial system, parliamentary affairs, sexual reproductive health, education, religion, arts, politics, sports, business and finance, agriculture and mining, etc. These programmes have platforms for comment and debate besides the fact that they are educating and informative. It is therefore clear that such a radio station is vital for ALL Zimbabwean citizens to be well-informed and knowledgeable enough to make meaningful contribution during the constitution-making outreach programme (especially the urban citizen).

In my personal capacity, I have made serious attempts to have the SFM management to address this issue but to no avail.

* On 1 March 2010, I texted Hilton Mavise, Shift Head of Montrose Studio FM. He ignored the message.
* On April 21, I called Mrs. Nonceba Mkandla, the Area Manager for Bulawayo based at Montrose Studio. She said she had done all she could to prompt her superiors to address the issue to no avail. She said the problem was from Transmedia and TelOne faults. She even gave me Minister Webster Shamu’s two mobile saying the issue should be taken to him. Obviously neither of the Minister’s numbers was ever reachable.
* On May 7 2010, I called Rodney Rwende, the Shift Manager of SFM in Pockets Hill. Without bothering to hear what my problem was, he claimed his phone battery was low and gave me his superior’s number instead.
* On the same day, I called Simon Mkhithika, Head of SFM. He said he was aware of the problem. He was not any more helpful than the others but instead blamed the problem on some mysterious POLITICAL issue regards broadcasting that had been offset by Jonathan Moyo.
* I have called the engineers at Montrose and the radio presenters and the majority were rude, contempt of our plight and downright bureaucratic to protect their superiors.
* I have tried to reach Allen Chiweshe, Head of Radio Programming for ZBC on both his mobile and landline, to no avail. From this true information, it is clear I have gone out of my way to find numbers and call for rectification of the problems to no avail.

This led me to the conclusion that ZBC SFM is deliberately ignoring the breakdown in transmission to keep us ill-informed regards the pertinent issues that could equip us to make meaningful contribution to the new constitution. Besides that, ZBC continues to demand radio and TV license fees from this region despite their awareness that we have no access to either SFM or National FM. The licence fees are equivalent to those paid in Harare and Northern Zimbabwe although clearly this is grossly unfair as the capital has access to ZTV channel 2 at no additional cost. Is it coincidence that the languages targeted by National FM (e.g. Tonga, Venda, Sotho, Nambya, etc ) are spoken by people mainly found in the parts of Zimbabwe affected by the breakdown? I think not since ZBC (has not bothered to address this problem) regards these as minority people in Zimbabwe.

Why hasn’t ZBC at least spoken to us to address this problem via Power FM, Radio Zim or ZTV? Should we be silenced and accept ZBC’s excuse that the problem is Transmedia and TelOne’s baby when the problem affects its paid-up licence holders who will soon be expected to make contributions to the COPAC teams? Would it not be better for ALL willing Zimbabweans to be heard at a discreet but national radio level first, before the smaller, face-to-face platforms of the COPAC outreach reach them? Should this evil of clear regionalism, tribalism and sabotage of the constitution making process be ignored? Should our right to information and service provision for something we pay for be demanded? Should incompetence and corruption regards this issue be politicised?

Why is it when it comes to radio and TV transmission, Harare and its surroundings is never affected but Bulawayo has perennial problems including this current and on-going problem? Should sanctions be blamed on an issue that never affects Harare but makes it a mockery to say Bulawayo is the second-largest city? Do Cuthbert Dube and his fellow ZBC Board members even know about this issue since they have ensured that there is no clear platform for complaints regards faults and breakdowns of the service they chair? Does Happison Muchetetere, CEO of ZBC care about this problem and is he aware of its impact on this historic constitution making process on Southern Zimbabwean citizens?

We would sue ZBC if we had the means and know-how to do so. But then we are just ordinary citizens who are simply petitioning for this problem to be resolved and for us to be heard.

This is why Zimbabweans shouldn’t pay their TV or radio licences and why companies shouldn’t advertise on state-controlled media:

Information and Publicity Minister and Zanu (PF) political commissar Webster Shamu has ordered all Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation four Radio stations’ Disc Jockeys and the two television channels to play some Zanu (PF) propaganda jingles he produced for at least twice an hour per each DJ’s shift. The launch of the propaganda jingles is believed to be in preparation for a possible election next year. More

Rejoice Ngwenya on civil society, free media, party politics and political vuvuzelas . . .

The vivacious Violet Gonda is a Zimbabwean journalist of persona non grata in her country simply because of being a rare breed of courageous radio broadcasters willing to take on a rogue state. Such is the paranoia in Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF regime that broadcast laws that deliberately prevent alternative opinion are entrenched in the legislative DNA. The positive spinoff of this scenario has been a proliferation  of shortwave and internet broadcast stations spanning the globe, the most popular being VOA Studio 7 news based in Washington DC, Voice of the People in Botswana and Violet’s own SW Africa radio in England.

On many occasions, Zimbabweans and gullible Africans have been made to believe that vice and toxic rumour is embedded in such alternative viewpoint. In more ways than one, it is for this reason that ZANU-PF refuses to take the Global Political Agreement forward, claiming as long as Morgan Tsvangirayi’s MDC does not influence closure of such stations, Mugabe will refuse to cooperate. Bulls eat grass, but the fresh results of their digestion are unpleasant to the eye. Had there been a more family-friendly term to describe the product of this biological process, I would have had no problem labelling ZANU-PF opinion.

Ironically, Violet Gonda and her friends do not want to live in forced exile, because of family commitments back in Zimbabwe. But as long as they face arrest, and as long as the broadcast regulations outlaw alternative opinion, we Zimbabweans at home will continue to tune in to VOA Studio 7, Voice of the People and SW Radio for REAL news. What we know is that MDC have no chance in hell to influence closure of these stations. That makes me feel good!

But it is not all diamond that glitters from these alternative airwaves – at least according to MDC Professor Mutambara’s sympathisers. There is consensus amongst his supporters that most if not all external broadcasters have taken a position to support Tsvangirayi’s formation at the expense of all other progressive forces of democracy. Their argument is that in the haste to rid Zimbabwe of the curse of authoritarian dictatorship, these broadcasters paint anything or anyone who takes a side that opposes Tsvangirayi as anti struggle.

They continue that MDC Tsvangirayi failures are not sufficiently interrogated, while only the opinion of analysts who have something negative to say about Mutambara are given undue prominence. For example, the best news item that can ever emerge from rural Matebeleland is when councillors from Mutambara defect to Tsvangirayi’s party. Such news, Mutambara’s people argue, takes precedence over the antics of Theresa Makone, Tsvangirayi’s new home affairs boss who is related to Mugabe’s political hit man, Didymus Mutasa. The two are currently on the front page for attempting to sprout habitual ZANU-PF property rights violators form prison. ZANU-PF, who term alternative studios ‘pirate radio stations’, amplify Tsvangirayi’s internal party struggles, reminding readers that Ms Makone is the same woman whose husband ‘controls’ Tsvangirayi via what they call MDC’s ‘kitchen cabinet’. At one time, Ms Makone was accused of displacing the MDC women’s assembly leader in order to exert more influence on the party’s strategy. And all this – Mutambara’s people argue – does not receive airplay on ‘pirate’ radio stations.

As a regular contributor to these useful and value-adding radio stations, I attempt to present balanced opinions. Freelance analysts like me do not influence editorial policy, but we need to pitch our commentary from an objective perspective. I have no sacred cows. More importantly, Violet Gonda would not be able to influence what I say, but she would be in a position to decide what to publish depending on her editorial slant. For example, in one of SW Africa Radio Friday night programs called Hot Seat, Tony Reeler, director of Research and Advocacy Unit [RAU] commenting on Professor Arthur Mutambara’s position in government, tells Ms Gonda: “So he’s there by grace and favour of the Agreement but not by any other ground.”

A more mundane interpretation of this cryptic statement is that Mutambara is not in the coalition government by virtue of electoral credibility, but that he is the president of a [MDC] minority party with few seats in a remote part of Zimbabwe. Obviously with Zimbabwe’s first past the post electoral system, it would have been unthinkable to have the professor in government. Herein lies the need for progressive ‘pirate’ analysts to offer objective radio commentary.

My angle would be that the GPA brought into government hundreds of worthless politicians from all three sides. Morgan Tsvangirayi himself has on several occasions expelled councillors and recently reshuffled ministers. Accusations of corruption, underhand deals and inefficiency have plagued his party, while neutrals argue that even himself as Prime Minister, is guilty of soft-padding Mugabe in international foras. Observers insist that incomes, infrastructure and public facilities are only marginally better than before the coalition, while power blackouts hound an industry struggling to emerge from recession. The human rights sector is disastrous, with no single conviction of ZANU-PF zealots who murdered, maimed and raped innocent citizens in June 2008. His critics argue he has failed to reign in on rogue elements raiding commercial farms including those properties protected under regional bilateral agreements. Therefore to diminish Mutambara’s role in government without a rub off on Tsvangirayi’s personal political reputation is an impossible feat.

Mr Reeler himself is a product of a decade old struggle against dictatorship, a flag bearer of a contingent of brave human rights defenders that have survived determined ZANU-PF antagonism and intimidation. In this noble group of principled citizens one finds peace campaigner Jestina Mukoko, lawyer Irene Petras, constitutional expert Lovemore Madhuku and countless other civil society activists. But unlike Arthur Mutambara who has risen from mere student activism to national leadership, I and Reeler have little other than political vuvuzelas to show for our rhetoric.  My point is simple. This is no time to denigrate each others’ value propositions. If civil society was half as effective as its loud voice, Mugabe would have abandoned ship in 2002.

The French football team didn’t do too well but France should get a big pom pom for this initiative:

Reporters Without Borders unveils first “Anti-Censorship Shelter”

Reporters Without Borders today launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter” in Paris for use by foreign journalists, bloggers and dissidents who are refugees or just passing through as a place where they can learn how to circumvent Internet censorship, protect their electronic communications and maintain their anonymity online.

“At a time when online filtering and surveillance is becoming more and more widespread, we are making an active commitment to an Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all by providing the victims of censorship with the means of protecting their online information,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“Never before have there been so many netizens in prison in countries such as China, Vietnam and Iran for expressing their views freely online,” the press freedom organisation added. “Anonymity is becoming more and more important for those who handle sensitive data.”

Reporters Without Borders and the communications security firm XeroBank have formed a partnership in order to make high-speed anonymity services, including encrypted email and web access, available free of charge to those who user the Shelter.

By connecting to XeroBank through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), their traffic is routed across its gigabit backbone network and passes from country to country mixed with tens of thousands of other users, creating a virtually untraceable high-speed anonymity network.

This network will be available not only to users of the Shelter in Paris but also to their contacts anywhere in the world and to all those – above all journalists, bloggers and human rights activists – who have been identified by Reporters Without Borders. They will be able to connect with the XeroBank service by means of access codes and secured, ready-to-use USB flash drives that can be provided on request.

XeroBank is a communications security firm that has cornered the market on one of the rarest commodities in the world: online privacy. It specializes in communication solutions that protect its clients from all eavesdroppers.

The best-known free encryption and censorship circumvention software is also available to users of the Shelter, along with manuals and Wiki entries on these issues. A multimedia space is planned for journalists and Internet users who want to film and send videos.

The Shelter will eventually also have a dedicated website for hosting banned content. Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk’s reports on the pollution of Egypt’s lakes, which are banned in his country, and articles that are banned in Italy by its new phone-tap law will all have a place in what is intended to be a refuge for those who still being censored.

The Shelter is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday. Anyone wanting to use it should make a reservation by sending an email to shelter (@) rsf (dot) org

The Shelter could not have been created without the support of the Paris city hall.

Reporters Without Borders points out that around 60 countries are currently subject to some form of online censorship and that Internet filtering is in effect in around 40 of them. About 120 netizens (bloggers, Internet users, and citizen journalists) are currently in prison worldwide.