Econet Wireless, the country's largest mobile telecommunications company, has announced that equipment for its expansion program to upgrade network capacity from 800 000 to 1.2 million customers will start arriving in Zimbabwe next month, and installation should take at least three months to complete.

In a statement released by the company's communications department, Chief Executive Officer Douglas Mboweni said the equipment has been ordered from Ericsson of Sweden and ZTE of China who early this year won the contract to supply equipment for Econet's expansion.

"This is our third major project we have undertaken in less than two years, and one of the largest investments ever made by a single company in the country in the same period.

Once the equipment is here then installation work will begin", said Douglas Mboweni, Econet Chief executive Officer.

The expansion project is expected to be bankrolled by an offshore funding facility to finance the expansion programme that will see its network capacity being increased from 800 000 subscribers to 1.2 million by the end of February 2008.

Mr. Mboweni said that the company's board had already directed that the expansion should not be suspended despite the current low tariffs because the project would be funded offshore and not from local resources.

He said although the 900% tariff cut imposed on the industry in July had severely strained the company's capacity to carry out expansion work, funding for the equipment had already been sourced from outside the country long before the tariff cuts.

Ericsson is providing equipment to expand the core network which is made up of the switching systems, Intelligent Network platforms, prepaid systems, as well as new base stations in Harare, Mashonaland and Manicaland; whilst ZTE is supplying radio base stations for the southern part of the country, covering such parts as Bulawayo urban and its environs, Masvingo, Midlands, and the Matabeleland provinces.

The Chinese company will also build new sites in remote rural areas as well as along the national highways.

The issue of foreign funding for projects has affected several businesses in Zimbabwe and telecommunications industry has neither been spared.

Econet Wireless announced in June last year that they would also launch a 3-G facility through their business partner brand but nothing has materialized up to date.

The Econet communications manager said that for now they do not have anything to report since there have been no new developments.

He also bemoaned the continuous power cuts which he said were seriously affecting their business. "Whilst power cuts have been a thorn in the flesh for us, we have tried our best to assist by installing diesel-powered generators to militate against any unscheduled power outages. However it has been difficult for us since we cannot install a generator at every base station", he said.

Highway Africa News Agency