It is not visible to the naked eye. No towers are going up overnight, no ribbon-cutting ceremonies are drawing crowds in the streets. But beneath the surface of Zimbabwe's cities and towns, a war is being fought, one waged in radio waves and corporate boardrooms, and its outcome will determine how fast, or how slowly, this country joins the digital century.
The two combatants are familiar names: Econet Wireless and NetOne. The prize is 5G dominance. And for the first time in Zimbabwe's telecoms history, the contest is genuinely too close to call.
Econet Moves First, Then Moves Faster
Econet Wireless, which controls roughly 70 percent of Zimbabwe's mobile market, drew first blood in February 2022 when it launched 5G services in Harare. What followed was not a slow rollout but an aggressive, sustained push. In the past year alone, Econet added more than 100 new 5G-capable sites to its network, including 32 additional base stations in Harare, with 120 more in the pipeline. The company's stated ambition is full 5G coverage across all major urban centres within two years.
For a network that already dominates voice and data, this is not merely an upgrade. It is a declaration that Econet intends to own Zimbabwe's digital infrastructure for the next generation.
NetOne Refuses to Be Left Behind
What has surprised industry observers is not Econet's push, expected from a company of its scale, but NetOne's response.
The state-owned operator, long written off as the perennial second-place finisher, launched its own terrestrial 5G service in October 2024. Since then it has deployed 86 new base station sites nationwide, including 264 LTE installations and 16 full 5G installations. For a parastatal historically constrained by procurement bureaucracy and tight capital budgets, the pace has been striking.
More significantly, NetOne has moved into territory Econet has not yet entered. The company has signed a partnership agreement with AST SpaceMobile, the American satellite telecommunications firm, to explore direct-to-device 5G connectivity via satellite. If this technology delivers on its promise, it could allow NetOne to extend broadband access to Zimbabwe's rural communities, areas where building terrestrial infrastructure has never made commercial sense, and where millions of Zimbabweans have waited decades for reliable connectivity.
That possibility, of a state carrier leapfrogging the private sector in rural coverage, would represent one of the most consequential shifts in Zimbabwe's telecoms landscape in years.
Why This Race Matters Beyond Bragging Rights
It would be easy to dismiss the Econet-NetOne contest as a corporate rivalry between a market leader and an ambitious challenger. It is something more consequential than that.
Fifth-generation mobile networks are not simply faster 4G. They are an entirely different infrastructure layer, one that enables the Internet of Things at scale, powers industrial automation, supports smart city applications, and provides the ultra-low latency that modern financial services, healthcare systems, and digital education platforms require to function properly.
For Zimbabwe, which has enshrined ambitious targets in its 2026 to 2030 National Digital Roadmap, 5G is not optional. It is the connective tissue that makes every other technology aspiration possible. Without it, the AI platforms, digital government services, fintech innovations, and e-commerce ecosystems that policymakers are banking on remain exactly that: aspiration, not reality.
What It Means for Ordinary Zimbabweans
The competition is already producing tangible results for consumers. Data prices, while still high by regional standards, have been declining as Econet and NetOne compete for subscribers. Network quality in Harare, Bulawayo, and other major urban centres has improved noticeably over the past eighteen months. Faster mobile broadband, improved video streaming, and the early signs of smart home and smart business services are becoming accessible to more Zimbabweans than at any point before.
These are not trivial developments in a country where mobile data has for too long been a luxury consumed in small, rationed bundles.
The Race Is Not Over
The 5G war between Econet and NetOne is, in truth, still in its early stages. Coverage remains largely urban. Rural Zimbabwe, where the majority of the population lives, is still waiting. The satellite partnership NetOne has signed with AST SpaceMobile remains unproven in this market. And Econet, despite its head start, faces the challenge of sustaining capital investment in an economy still navigating currency instability and fiscal pressure.
But the fact that this race is being run at all, and that both competitors are running hard, is itself significant. Zimbabwe has spent too many years watching the world's technological advances from the outside, importing solutions designed elsewhere for problems experienced here. The 5G contest between Econet and NetOne is a rare exception: a technological battle being fought on Zimbabwean soil, by Zimbabwean companies, for Zimbabwean users.
The winner has yet to be decided. But the country, whichever network comes out ahead, stands to gain.
The Granite Post | thegranite.co.zw | Breaking Zimbabwe News and In-Depth Reporting
