Powertel Communications, a subsidiary of the Zesa Holdings Group, has ventured into internet of things (IoT) business with new lines of services that include vehicle tracking and generator monitoring. Speaking to NewsDay yesterday, Prosper Mutswiri, Powertel head of marketing and corporate branding, said the company had launched the products with an aim to simplify doing business and had yielded positive results in the first 100 days. “We are confident to say we have managed to improve people’s lives through our electricity prepayment department and we account for 96% of electricity revenues countrywide,” said Mutswiri. “We have also ventured into IoT and have so far managed to unpack new lines of services that include vehicle tracking and generator monitoring. “I can conclusively assure you that we remain solid, continue to value customer experience and value for money services for all our customers in all sectors. Indeed, Powertel is open for business.” Mutswiri said their system integrated various key perfomance indicators via a visual dashboard, among them interactive communication capabilities, accident reports, speeding perpetual notification and analysis of fleet. He said the company aimed to bring in latest technologies that would improve people’s lives and ease of doing business. “The company is trying to curb some of the problems that the country previously had. For instance, we have managed to curb load-shedding through the introduction of prepaid meters and that shows that we are on the right track. “Currently, we have managed to indirectly employ 800 powertrack technites through the IoT and for the prepaid meter installations and maintenance, a total of 68 000 jobs were created. In all of this, we are trying to create a simple way of doing business,” he said. “In areas of low connectivity, the system offers a flash storage as a back-up plan. We have full confidence of the PowerTrack Fleet. Management solution in providing visibility of your vehicles anywhere in Zimbabwe and beyond the border into the region. It is a must-have solution as it offers any business a plethora of benefits. These include reduced operating cost through real-time monitoring, fuel management and driver behavior monitoring, geo-fencing, reduced risk of vehicle abuse and loss/ theft and increased productivity.” Powertel Communications is a leading internet access provider servicing both business and consumer markets with a host of services, including mobile and fixed broadband, Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions on 08611 networks, carrier services and virtual private networking. The company is also the aggregator of the Power plus prepaid electricity top-up system in Zimbabwe. It worked on the prepaid electricity aggregation system and to date, over 96% of prepaid electricity revenues are earned through it. The internet access company controls a significant market share in carrier business and broadband services in Zimbabwe. - Newsday