Mobile subscribers belonging to both Econet Wireless and Telecel Zimbabwe have experienced disruptions to their service over the past two days. The two telcos have acknowledged the situation and confirm it is being addressed.

Econet Wireless, which has approximately 9 million registered subscribers, said recently it was upgrading its network to allow for enhanced capacity and to improve service offerings.

Telecel Zimbabwe, in which the government recently bought a majority stake from VimpelComm, has around 3 million subscribers on its network.

Subscribers had complained of disruption to WhatsApp services on the Econet network since Tuesday this week. However, WhatsApp services were accessible through WiFi and other internet connectivity platforms apart from the telco's data network.

In a text message to subscribers Econet said on Thursday that it would refund affected subscribers to compensate for the loss in uptime. The company offers WhatsApp data bundles for one day, one week and one month window periods.

"We apologise for service disruption on WhatsApp. Affected subscribers will be refunded once service has been restored," Econet said.

Mobile subscribers on Telecel Zimbabwe's network were also unable to top up their accounts on Wednesday, with the network refusing to load airtime credit on user accounts. No service disruptions had been reported on the network run by NetOne, in which the government has control.

"We apologise for the recharge service disruptions experienced yesterday. Any inconvenience is sincerely regretted," Telecel Zimbabwe said.

Zimbabwean telecom companies have invested heavily in network expansion and are increasingly expanding their data networks in light of declining revenues from the voice category, the industry's traditional cash cow.

Over The Top (OTT) services being run are now under increasing scrutiny by officials, with police commissioner Augustine Chihuri slamming the alleged abuse of platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook.