by NORMA TSOPO
FOR three decades, NetOne has been a utility of sorts, a state-backed giant tasked with keeping Zimbabweans talking.
On its 30th anniversary, the operator is attempting a rebrand less concerned with minutes and megabytes than with diagnosing a nation’s ills.
This week, in the rural district of Chikomba West, the company launched a telemedicine pilot in partnership with ZimSmart Villages, an initiative that marks a subtle but significant shift: connectivity as a delivery mechanism for public health, rather than an end in itself.
The logic is as pragmatic as it is political.
Zimbabwe’s public health system, long strained by brain drain and a chronic shortage of specialists, leaves rural populations with few options beyond primary clinics.
NetOne’s answer is to deploy its existing fibre and mobile infrastructure to bridge that gap.
At the programme’s launch, the firm’s public relations manager, Ernest Magadzire, framed the move as a philosophical evolution. “Technology is our core business,” he said, “but its greatest value is realised when we use it to create solutions that matter.”
That is a convenient mantra for a company whose market share has been squeezed by aggressive competitors. Yet the initiative reflects a broader strategic realignment.
NetOne is repositioning itself from a mere carrier to a development partner, leaning into the government’s Vision 2030—a blueprint that places innovation at the heart of economic transformation.
The endorsement of the First Lady, Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa, in her capacity as Patron of Health, lends the project political gravity.
The pilot is modest in scope but ambitious in signal.
By connecting rural clinics to urban specialists via video link, NetOne aims to reduce the cost and risk of medical referrals.
If successful, the model could be replicated across agriculture and education, turning the company’s physical infrastructure into a platform for state services.
NetOne’s anniversary pledge—“connecting people to possibilities”—is a bet that the next chapter of telecoms is not about faster downloads, but about delivering what governments have long promised and seldom achieved: access.
Do you have a story to share? Email bchiketo@gmail.com