Almot Maqolo, Staff Writer 
STATE-OWNED telecommunications company, TelOne is investing US$31,1 million this year in network and technology infrastructure enhancements amid widespread concerns over Starlink’s expected disruption of its present business model.
The company says it is however in search of long-term financing options to cater for a broader network upgrade.
TelOne is one of the entities that is managed by Mutapa Investment Fund (MIF), with the expectation of turning around its fortunes and making it profitable.
TelOne is saddled with legacy challenges, chief among them its antiquated infrastructure whose copper network is now out of lease and life span can no longer carry the desired level of throughput.
To replace the copper network, it has introduced wireless access technologies in the form of 4G LTE, which is going to evolve into a 5G network.
“With the resources that we have generated on our own and also the legacy infrastructure we have disposed of, we have been able to raise resources to fund,” TelOne’s chief executive, Lawrence Nkala, told The Financial Gazette on the sidelines of the company’s annual general meeting.
“We have also been able to get access to financing out of the local banks through short-term loans, which is undesirable, but this has kept us going in modernising our network.”
Nkala indicated that the return on investment, particularly for wireless access, “is very quick and very good.”.
“We are looking at a return on investment of around two to three years, and that is good for the business. We know that for fibre, it takes a bit longer, but it is a future-proof business, so it can take up to five to ten years in terms of return on investment.
“But for wireless access, it’s a quick win, and we deploy, and we are able to generate enough cash flows to repay the loans. So, this is why, as a business, we are looking for long-term financing rather than short-term financing because, within two years, it’s very difficult to have recovered the investment that we put in the network,” he said.
Some of the funds will be invested in the company’s backbone infrastructure project, particularly the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls and the metro, as well as the last mile fibre connectivity to customers.
Starlink offers high throughput in terms of speed and is also a competitively priced product.
As part of its survival strategies, TelOne has partnered with a British-based global low-earth orbit satellite communications network firm, Eutelsat OneWeb, for internet service.
