Communications in Zimbabwe refers to the communication services available in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

Background

Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) was established by the Postal and Telecommunications Act in 2000 and started its operations in March 2001. This legislation brought about a new institutional framework for telecommunications in Zimbabwe.

Telephone system

The phone system was once one of the best in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, but now suffers from poor maintenance; more than 100,000 outstanding requests for connection despite an equally large number of installed but unused main lines. Main lines in use: 356,000 (2011) The domestic system consists of microwave radio relay links, open-wire lines, radiotelephone communication stations, fixed wireless local loop installations, and a substantial mobile cellular network; Internet connection is available in most major towns that includes

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

Gweru Gweru is a city in central Zimbabwe. Near the geographical centre of the country. It is on the centre of Midlands Province. Originally an area known to the Ndebele as "The Steep Place" because of the Gweru River's high banks, in 1894 it beca ...

Bulawayo Bulawayo (, ; Ndebele: ''Bulawayo'') is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council ...

, Mutare through fiber optic and other remote parts through satellite communication International: country code – 263; satellite earth stations – 2 Intelsat; two international digital gateway exchanges (in

and

) (2010) Mobile cellular: 9.2 million (2011)

Radio

There is a total of 16 radio stations that broadcast locally: 6 broadcast nationally, the other 10 broadcast provincially and are located in the country's major cities. The

national broadcaster Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

owns 4 national and 2 provincial radio stations. Two independent stations, ZiFM Stereo and Star FM were launched in 2012 and both broadcast nationally. 2016 saw the launch of 8 regional, private owned radio stations and in 2018, ZBC launched 2 more provincial stations, Khulumani FM in

and 95.8 Central Radio in

. As of 2013, Zimbabwean authorities have required all radio owners to obtain a "listening licence" from the state.

Television

There is 1 state-controlled television station,

ZBC TV ZBC TV, also known as ZTV, is Zimbabwe's public free to air television network that is fully owned and operated by the state broadcaster. History In the country, television was introduced on 15 November 1960, making it the second country after N ...

, formerly

Rhodesia Television Rhodesia Television (RTV) was a live-broadcast, television station operating in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as a private company. It was established on the 14th of November, 1960, first in Salisbury (now Harare), with transmissions in Bul ...

(RTV). The government has shut down and refuses to issue licenses to domestic independent broadcasters such as JoyTV in 2002. However satellite TV providers including DStv are available. In 2013, Zimbabwe saw the introduction of its first pay TV. In 2017, Kwesé TV a subsidiary of Econet Global which was founded by Zimbabwean entrepreneur Strive Masiyiwa has been delayed license to operate in Zimbabwe by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ). In November 2020, the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe granted free to air, national commercial TV broadcasting licences to 6 private companies after shortlisting 14 applicants, breaking the national broadcaster's 60 year old TV monopoly. The regulator gave the 6 successful applicants 18 months to begin broadcasting. TV stations that were awarded licences include the Bulawayo based FairTalk Communications' KeYona TV, ZimPapers Limited's ZTN (Zimpapers Television Network) (now known as ZTN Prime), Rusununguko Media's NRTV, Jester Media's 3K TV (now known as 3Ktv), Acacia Media Group's Kumba TV and Channel Dzimbahwe's Channel D. Unsuccessful applicants include AB Communications' Flex TV, Alpha Media Holdings' HStv, Blackbury Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd's Blackbury TV, Conduit Investments (Pvt) Ltd's Conduit TV Station, Just in Time TV (Pvt) Ltd's JIT TV, Medianet Productions (Pvt) Ltd's Sunrise TV and Meditation Investments (Pvt)'s Zim News Channel.

Market structure mobile

There are three GSM mobile network operators, namely Econet, Net One and Telecel. The current subscriber base in June 2011 to these three mobile operators were 5,521,000 people for Econet, 1,297,000 for Net One, and 1,349,000 for Telecel. All of these operators are 100 percent digitalized and offer 2G, GPRS, EDGE, 3G and 4G LTE services.

Internet

Internet hosts: 30,615 (2012) In 2009, there were 1.423 million internet users. In June 2004,

Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the Z ...

asked ISPs to monitor ''all'' email traffic passing through their systems for "anti-national activities". ISPs protest that this is an impossible task.

Country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

(Top level domain): .zw

References

Bibliography

External links

'Media and Telecommunication Lansdcape in Zimbabwe'

'infoasaid'
guide, September 2011, 76 pp.
ZiFm Radio
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Telecommunications in Zimbabwe