Econet’s AI Finds Thousands On Wrong Network Speed, Launches Free SIM And Settings Fix In Shops

By Ross Moyo

Econet has found thousands of customers are experiencing slow data not because of network congestion, but because their phones are manually locked to 2G/3G or using degraded SIM cards.

Mboweni said the scale of the problem was invisible until AI tools flagged it from network signalling data.

“We did not realise the scale of this problem until our AI tools identified it,” he said.

The company has invited affected customers into shops for free diagnostics and SIM replacement. Mboweni said the issue is expected to be resolved for all affected users within weeks.

This is classic customer experience leakage. An operator can spend $50m on 4G/5G expansion, but if a customer’s device is set to “WCDMA only” in Masvingo, they will never see it. AI closed that visibility gap by correlating IMSI, IMEI, and bearer settings with cell capability.

It explains why Econet paired this with accelerated 4G/5G base station purchases — fixing the handset side while fixing the network side simultaneously. Resolution deadline: June next year for the full program.