Internet Cafés facing extinction?

The advent of mobile broadband has brought with it convenience for the web browser yet the new technology appears to be causing headaches to the internet cafes as traffic is going down leading to cafes broadening their services.

One would question: will they die fighting, just fade away or will they change their business model and become more proactive in retaining clients and achieving new markets?

As the phone booth is dead and buried, Zimbabwe is highly unlikely to see a phone booth in the near future just like the call centres that had mushroomed all over town back in the day before every 58 people in a 100 could own a mobile phone.

The fact that mobile penetration has breached the 50 percentage mark leaves a bad taste in the mouth of internet café owners as some entered the market, put up desktops and just took a backseat.

The time has certainly arrived for them to go back to the drawing board in order to come up with plans that counter the aggressive mobile broadband providers like Econet, Powertel, and Africom while soon to join the bandwagon will be Telecel and at the same time minding their direct competitors.

An average internet user visited the café to check mail and maybe use the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) service Skype. That has changed now as one can simply use their mobile phones to check emails and those with laptops, the dongles can afford them the opportunity of using Skype and Googletalk on the go.

Facebook has become an addiction for some and it has become easy to access since the availability of mobile broadband folks are staying up late at night “sharing their thoughts” on matters to do with the heart, football and all kinds of “crazy” things.

Sources close to the goings on at Econet say the mobile giant has since seen an upsurge in mobile broadband usage among its clients with numbers being said to have reached 800 000 from 400 000 in December 2010.

The numbers have doubled inside a month and half mainly because of Econet’s substantial network coverage and sources predict these numbers to keep on soaring despite the fact that the mobile service provider is probably the most expensive provider of mobile broadband.

It has turned out to be important that internet cafes do speak about the “elephant in the room” they just cannot afford to look sideways and wish these service providers away.

Tafara Gwata, Chief Executive of World Trade Centre internet café agrees that it is time they pulled up their socks in order to stay relevant. He acknowledged the laissez faire attitude cafés had adopted since the advent of internet.

“We have not been doing our jobs properly but the time has come for us to value add our services. We have had it the easy way but that is now gone because of mobile broadband. People now need to get the value for their dollar and we, for starters, have already started to develop new initiatives to add value to our cafes,” said Mr Gwata.

He said traffic into World Trade Centre had dipped with a percentage range of between 20 to 25 percent. He noted that effective training of internet use by customers was one of their target initiatives that look to retain clients as well as bring back what they have lost.

“Mobile broadband has had a positive and negative impact on our business. Negative in that we have lost the casual internet user who just wants to check mail or facebook which can be easily done on one’s mobile phone now,

However, there are certain things you can’t do on your mobile phone like working on a spreadsheet or downloading huge files and they still need us,” said Mr Gwata.

He said Econet had proved to be very aggressive in terms of its marketing because of their deep pockets which some internet cafes do not have. He termed it a “brilliant complimentary service” as it has made people in general aware that there is such a thing as internet let alone broadband internet thus indirectly Econet advertised for internet cafes like World Trade Centre.

“I must point out that there are people out there lying that this mobile broadband being offered on the phone is faster than what we have in our cafes to which I would like to say that’s not true. We want a bigger user base and I believe we will keep what we have and add more.

Someone who looks to have realised the power wielded by mobile broadband is Khumz Khumalo of Khuyanet internet café.  He has already set up a café that aims at grabbing a niche market and keep it.

“Khuyanet officially opened its doors February 2011, so we are a brand new baby. We are yet to see if that will have any impact on us. We are targeting a niche that we believe will not be affected by the new development in mobile broadband,

The environment is very executive, and our speeds are consistently fast (the fastest in town) and exceptional client service delivery,” said Mr Khumalo.

The jury is still out and only time will tell if they get that niche market and at the same time retain it.

IT expert, Dereck Goto, contends that internet cafes face extinction unless they change their attitude towards surfers and the business. He believes they will close down in the near future.

“Things are changing and mobile broadband is only going to get better. I for one use Africom because they are they provide the fastest broadband and it only costs me $18 flat, for a month with a capped bandwidth of 1 gig,” said Mr Goto.

He said for the same amount of bandwidth with Econet one would have to fork out no less than $110 which described as exorbitant.

“The average user will not spend that 1 gig in a month but people like me who would want to download software or an update for a client may spend more,” said Mr Goto.

He added that cafes should target niche markets in order to survive and this includes heavy users of the internet who might be averse to cost of downloads on mobile broadband.

“Cafes should just offer faster speeds and the deal is done. Heavy users of the internet don’t worry about the cost of surfing when the speeds are exceptional. Cafes in South Africa have survived because of their speeds and that way they can challenge these service providers,” noted Mr Goto.

In the words of the late but great, Bob Marley, only time will tell.