There are reportedly millions of Zimbabweans in South Africa. If you are one of them, you may be wondering how to get roaming on your MTN SIM when you go back home on a visit or for the holidays. How do you activate MTN roaming for Zimbabwe? And what are the charges? Which Zimbabwean network is best in terms of connectivity and price? Those are the questions that we are going to answer in this post.
Can I use MTN in Zimbabwe?
Many people wonder whether or not they can use their MTN phones in Zimbabwe. The answer is yes, you can use MTN in Zimbabwe. You can make calls both locally and internationally while in Zimbabwe. However, in order to do that, you are going to need to turn on international roaming on your MTN SIM.
How do I do that?
Before you can use your MTN SIM in Zimbabwe, you need to first activate international roaming. This can be done while you are still in South Africa. Follow the provided link to learn more about switching on roaming on MTN in South Africa.
MTN Roaming Tariffs for Zimbabwe
Roaming on any network is not cheap. This applies whatever the country you may be visiting. So, that’s something that you need to keep in mind. In Zimbabwe, there are three major mobile networks. Econet is the largest by a wide margin. In terms of quality, it’s the best.
The second biggest network in the country is NetOne. This company is state owned. It’s claim to fame is that it covers much of the country, including rural areas. Zimbabweans visiting their home country from South Africa will mostly be heading for their parents’ rural homes. Hence, NetOne is a great choice here.
Telecel is the smallest player on the scene. This company is good enough. It offers some of the most affordable calling tariffs for locals. But how does it fare in terms of MTN roaming in Zimbabwe? The table below helps clarify issues as far as MTN roaming tariffs for Zimbabwe are concerned;
| NETWORK | LOCAL CALLS | CALL RSA | RECEIVE CALL | SMS | DATA/MB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Econet | R 7.50 | R 10 | R 7.50 | R5 | R 10 |
| Telecel | R 10 | R 15 | R 7.50 | R 5 | R 5 |
| Netone | R 10 | R 15 | R 7.50 | R 5 | R 10 |
As you can see in the above table, MTN roaming Zimbabwe charges vary depending on the service and on the network on which you are roaming. Generally, Econet tends to be the cheapest. When calling locally while roaming on Econet, you get charged R7.50. For calls to South Africa, you get charged R10 per minute.
The major challenge with roaming is that you also get charged when receiving calls. You can see in the above table that you get charged R7.50 when receiving calls on your MTN phone while roaming across all Zimbabwean networks. The SMS tariffs are also the same across the board.
In terms of data, Telecel is the cheapest. You get charged R5 per Megabyte, while the other networks will charge you R10 per megabyte. Telecel and NetOne both charge R10 for local calls while calls to South Africa are charged R15.
So, which network will you choose for your MTN roaming in Zimbabwe? That depends on a number of factors. A lot of people prefer Econet. It’s the best in terms of quality. But if you would like to do data roaming, you may need to choose Telecel, which is the cheapest.
Check out Cell C roaming Zimbabwe.
Manually choose network android
How do you choose the network for roaming when using your MTN phone in Zimbabwe? You can leave things as they are, in which case the network will be selected automatically according to one criteria or the other. The next options is to choose your network manually. That’s what you should do when it comes to MTN roaming in Zimbabwe. The following is how to manually pick a network on Android;
- Go to Settings on your phone.
- Next, click on Mobile Networks.
- From there, click on Network Operators.
- Your phone will search for available networks.
- Choose your preferred network from the list.
Summary
In this article, we talked about MTN roaming in Zimbabwe. We noted that it’s possible for MTN users to roam in Zimbabwe on NetOne, Telecel or Econet. These networks charge different amounts.
We noted that roaming is expensive. You should probably only do so if you are going to be staying in Zimbabwe for a long time. If you are going for a few days, it’s better to buy a local SIM.
But you may be waiting for an important call. Maybe it’s work related. Or it’s for something else. In that case, you won’t have any choice but to do MTN roaming in Zimbabwe.
Please leave a comment below if you have something to say. You can also go our MTN South Africa discussion forum. Leave a comment there and get others to help you.