HARARE – Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe’s biggest mobile phone network, suffered a major technical fault which left millions of Zimbabweans unable to call or go on the internet on Wednesday.
The blackout sparked fears that the shutdown may have been ordered by the government ahead of anti-government protests on July 31. The government has previously ordered an internet shutdown during demonstrations.
Econet however blamed the blackout, lasting over five hours, on an internal technical fault. Services went down at about 5.15PM and were not restored until after 10PM.
The company said it had experienced a “technical challenge on our core network switch, which affected voice and data service delivery across many parts of our network.”
Econet says it has over 10 million subscribers in Zimbabwe, a huge slice of the mobile phone market which it shares with rivals NetOne and Telecel.
