Zimbabwe recently experienced a major internet blackout due to a technical fault on Liquid Telecom's main fibre line.

The internet outage on Tuesday this week started at 11:30 AM and lasted until 17:00 PM, affecting most operators that use Liquid Telecom's network, a subsidiary of Econet Wireless Global.

Econet Wireless Zimbabwe issued a statement which read: "Econet Wireless apologises to its valued customers for the data outage experienced on Tuesday, December 5, 2017, resulting in customers being unable to access the internet and related data services on our network."

Liquid Telecom's local fibre network is the largest in the country with a market share of more than 80% and has other telecoms players relying on the company's bandwidth.

As quoted by Zimbabwe's NewsDay at the time of the blackout, Liquid Telecom's Chief Commercial Officer, Martin Mushambadope attributed the blackout to a breakdown along two of their main lines that supply them with bandwidth.

He said, "We are in contact with our South African counterparts to try and resolve the problem. What happened was that two of our main lines that provide us with internet bandwidth in South Africa went down, so our technicians are working on resolving the problem."

"We have also requested a full report from our South African counterparts and only then can we be able to have conclusive facts as to how those lines went down."

Traders on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) earlier this year confirmed a strong interest from foreign investors in Econet Wireless shares.

"The market continued on an upward trend in the month of July, gaining a further 1.55% to close the month at a total market capitalisation of $5.98bn. The Industrial Index edged up 3.71% to 203.25 buoyed by gains in Econet up 13.07%," stated analysts at IH Securities.