Can someone make a meme about this? We really want a meme about this.

The internet tariff hike (Datapocalypse?) became even worse last week with Econet’s huge spike in bundle prices, changing to them bouquets while nearly tripling its prices for almost all it’s packages. To put it simply, no one was anywhere near pleased, and while everyone is trying to figure out a bundle plan that WILL work without completely eradicating their wallet, Telecel has seemingly become a champion when it comes to value for money with these bundles , with it still offering a $3.00 monthly bundle for an understandable amount of less data (200mb as compared to the 320mb that you get with the $5.00 bundle) but at a very competitive price for most people. If you’re secretly going crazy right now wondering how this is possible, well you’re not alone. But before you totally go all in on Telecel’s WhatsApp bundles, we figured we would help you see the big picture about it.

Breaking down Telecel’s bundle even, it’s easy to see that the value for money on it is crazy impressive, while Econet is now charging a crazy $8.00 for 400mb of WhatsApp data, which to be fair is more data than their previous $3.00 220mb WhatsApp bundle but considering that Telecel’s bundle is only 20 MB less than what Econet used to offer, you really wonder what Econet is thinking with their $8 price. Even NetOne, often another champion for great pricing, has been eclipsed by Telecel’s monthly bundle, only offering a $5 one like the alternative Telecel one as well. And the reason for Telecel’s seeming act of kindness here is more than a little obvious: it needs subscribers. The telecoms provider has been bleeding subscribers for years now, with NetOne’s OneFusion package and huge marketing campaign stealing many of its customers, along with classic kingpin Econet stepping on Telecel by having far superior internet speeds and services. And to be honest (at least as far as I’m concerned), Telecel has seemed to just be sort of lackluster in how it does things as of late. The company has been half hearted about it’s marketing, reactive rather than proactive in it’s ideas and generally lacking the same amount of punch it’s two competitors have been showing the past few years. As someone who’s had a Telecel line since he was 10 years old (even though it had basically become a backup the past few years), I’m genuinely pleased that the company like this is making moves like this again, downright exploiting where it’s opponents are weak while offering us customers much better value. An environment like this is what the country needs, and if these companies can actually get competitive as users start to migrate to rival operators, maybe we can actually have more fair prices in the midst of all these tariff hikes.

But again, as we mentioned before, Telecel is no guardian angel or savior here. They have agendas too and especially if you’re coming from Econet, you will see some speed drops if you start using a Telecel line for data. It’s thankfully not as bad for WhatsApp because of text messages being tiny in size, but you may notice a video or long voice note take a little longer to download. Also coverage is another area where Telecel falls short. I sometimes live in Kuwadzana phase with some relatives, and to this day I groan when I get there and my Telecel bars just drop on the phone. In fact living there for a year once was the ,main reason my Econet line became my data line. And I know there are a lot more areas in Harare and around Zimbabwe where the situation is similar and Telecel’s reception is unreliable. We honestly don’t know how it will fix it’s coverage issues , but we do know they need to be fixed asap, especially if its WhatsApp incentive works and more customers start flooding in again. And we hope they do honestly, we don’t want Telecel to kill this bundle like they have other services in the past and we honestly do recommend you try out their services if you can. There’s a lot to like here, and we hope Econet and NetOne take note.

What are you thoughts on our Datapocalypse? Which bundle are you using and how much are you spending? Tell us in the comments or on social media.