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Econet’s SmartBiz customers are not happy, and if you’ve been anywhere near Facebook or X lately, you’ve probably seen the frustration boiling over. What was once marketed as a business-friendly, high-capacity internet package appears to have undergone a significant—yet unannounced—change. The Fair Usage Policy (FUP) limit on Econet’s $45 SmartBiz plan, once pegged at a generous 1TB, now seems to have been slashed by a staggering 80%, down to just 200GB.
The shift has caught many users off guard. Complaints range from drastically reduced internet speeds to an overall feeling of being blindsided. Some users report speeds dropping to under 300Kbps—barely enough to load a basic webpage—and, in some extreme cases, crawling down to an unusable 3Kbps. For businesses relying on a stable connection, this is more than a hiccup—it’s a potential disruption to operations.
What’s puzzling is that the official SmartBiz page on Econet’s own website still lists the FUP cap at 1TB, a detail that only deepens the confusion. Meanwhile, customer service agents, according to several social media posts, are now citing the new 200GB limit as policy. This mismatch between what’s advertised and what’s enforced has only fueled customer dissatisfaction.
One Facebook commenter summed up the sentiment: “Smart Buzz line ratove ne 1 week network iri down. Then i call you guys like 2 times saying you will resolve the issue yaendeswa kuma technician. But nothing changes. The i call the 3rd time and you start saying i reached limit due to your fair usage policy.”
While not all users are affected—polls indicate around 40% of SmartBiz subscribers say their service is fine—those reporting issues are vocal and growing in number. The divide suggests that lighter users may still be operating under the FUP radar, while heavier users are hitting the new limit faster than expected.
To be fair, Fair Usage Policies are standard practice in the telecom world. They’re a way of balancing finite network resources, ensuring one user’s heavy downloads don’t degrade the experience for others. But what matters is transparency. Customers need to know what they’re paying for—and what happens when they reach a limit. A sudden, undocumented drop in the data cap isn’t just a policy update—it’s a breach of trust.
We reached out to Econet for clarification, and they’ve said a formal response is on the way. Until then, the only certainty for SmartBiz customers is uncertainty itself. Whether this 200GB cap is here to stay or part of a phased rollout remains to be seen. But one thing’s clear: changing a core part of an internet package without clearly communicating it is a sure way to lose goodwill—even among loyal customers.
If Econet wants to keep its SmartBiz brand credible, especially with SMEs and freelancers who depend on consistency, it will need to do more than just tweak the numbers behind the scenes. It’ll need to be smart about how it talks to the people using it.
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