FAQ

You can choose to pay your Zanlink bill by cash, cheque, through bank transfers or other online payment methods such as Direct Pay Online. Invoices are issued in USD, but payments can be made in TZS as per the day's exchange rate. Clients either pay against an invoice or just renew their next subscription period as they may deem necessary.

Zanlink normally charges on monthly basis for the broadband services to its clients. Clients can however pay quarterly, semiannually or on annual basis as well. Services such as domain, website hosting and AMC are charged on annual basis. There are other fees such as set up fees for broadband, LAN set up and hardware sales etc. that are one time only.

Zanlink's services are on pre-payment basis. All payments for its services are required to be made before the beginning of the next subscription period. If payments are not made on time, the service disconnects automatically. Our system sends you automatic alerts to renew your subscription via e mail or SMS on contacts that you have provided to us. Clients are required to pay bills on time to avoid inconvenience.

Once you settle your bill due to Zanlink your account gets reactivated. It takes between 45 minutes to 2 hours for the account to get reactivated.

All billing and payment information can be obtained from our finance and billing department. You can call our general office line on 2237480/1 and ask for our finance department, or write to accounts-zanlink@liquidtelecom.co.tz, for further information on billing and payments.

Zanlink broadband is a high speed, always on Internet connection that has capacity to transmit large amount of data at high speed. When connected to the Internet such a connection allows surfing or downloading much faster than a dial-up or any other narrowband connections. Broadband makes possible surfing at faster speeds, sending and receiving large email attachments and downloading music and video.

When the information flows from somewhere e.g. a web-page or a site to your PC you are "downloading" on the other hand when you send information, you are "uploading"

This is because we download (browsing, downloading clips, music etc.) much more than we upload (a website address, a few clicks etc.)

Zanlink aims to provide fast, reliable service to all our customers. Some customers try to hog disproportionate amount of available resources. Customers might select lower end plans for heavy work or make excessive use of peer-to-peer file sharing. This could result in 20% users using over 80% resources. High levels of usage by a small number of users risks reduced performance for all users. Zanlink has the following options to solve this problem:

• Lower the contention ratio
• Provide more resources and increase the prices
• Set download limits

The first two options are not fair to 80% users who use the resources sensibly. As such setting download limits is the best and fair solution. If any user requires higher limit he/she can upgrade to higher plan.

One GB is 1024 Megabyte or 1073741824 bytes. You can do the following with 1 GB download limit:

• An average web page is about 50 kilobytes in size - so you could download around 20,000 web pages for 1 gigabyte.
• An hour of surfing the web would be around 10 megabytes (200 pages) so you could surf non-stop for about 100 hours for 1 gigabyte.
• An hour of streamed radio would use about 15-20 megabytes.
• An hour of streamed video uses around 100-150 megabytes.
• Playing an online game typically uses about 10-15 megabytes per hour.
• Emails are very small - so 100 emails would be just 1 megabyte - or 100,000 emails for 1 gigabyte! (of course the attachments count extra)
• A super-high resolution (5-6 megapixel) digital camera JPEG picture or typical MP3 music file is about 2-3 megabytes so you could download 350-500 of these images/music files for 1 gigabyte. Very few users would actually exceed the download limits set.

All these plans offer high speed Internet access. If you select higher end plans they have more features such as more speed and data allocations, unlimited access, extra email addresses, domain name, web hosting space, static IP etc.

Yes, you can change your Zanlink Broadband plan at any time.

No, you will be able to use the same equipment provided with your current broadband plan.

When you are connected to the Internet, your PC is automatically assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) address to identify it to the outside world. IP addresses can be dynamic (that typically change with each session) and static (that are permanently allocated to you). Zanlink Broadband provides both dynamic and static IP depending upon the service plans that you have selected.

A static IP address may be required for certain services or applications you use. These typically include:

• Running your own mail server (SMTP inbound).
• Many VPN (virtual private network) implementations require one or both sides of the VPN to have a static IP address.
• If you are connecting to your company network and need access through their firewall.

All our broadband plans come with e mail accounts such as yourname@zanlink.com. The numbers of e mail accounts vary with the package you select. All our e mail accounts come with the below features:

• 100 MB storage space
• Global access with our web mail system. You can check your account from anywhere in the world.
• Pop3 IMAP4 and SMTP forwarding
• Spam filtering facilities
• Our mail server is protected with the latest antivirus software. However customers are advised to have their own antivirus protection for maximum security.

Contact our Sales department who will advise you the best broadband plan for your requirements. The sales department shall advice you on the connection method depending upon your location and the best broadband plans as well as other value-added services for you. You can either write to sales-zanlink@liquidtelecom.co.tz or call 255 (24) 2237480/1 to get more information on our broadband and other related services.

Zanlink has an Island wide fiber optical ring a well as 4G WIMAX covering all parts of Zanzibar where you can get connected via an Ethernet cable to your premises. Please visit our Network coverage section to view whether your location is covered by our fiber optical ring or microwave network. You can however always get this information by talking to our sales department who will arrange a site survey to determine the best way that you can get connected.

Once we receive your confirmed order, Zanlink will do the necessary site surveys and arrange an Installation. It normally takes 1 day to install cable broadband and not more than 2 days to install a microwave connection. However, if the installation is required in Pemba it may take between 3 and 5 days due to the transport and logistics entailed.

Zanlink has covered almost all parts of Unguja and Pemba with its broadband services. There should generally be no problem if you require us to provide you with a new connection or if you shift location. However, since we require doing a complete new set up the new set up charges will apply. Also, if you were initially connected via our fiber ring and are moving to a place where we don't have fiber optical coverage then we shall have to connect you using microwave technology for which we shall require to charge you for the hardware.

No. The Customer Support is there to help you with problems relating specifically to the service offered to you by Zanlink. If you have purchased a product where hardware was not provided as part of the service, the customer support will not be able to assist you with it, and you should contact your hardware supplier. Malfunction of Computer Software/Hardware; formatting of computer’s hard drive; IP address re-configuration; Internal Network problems, internal email/mail server configurations, PCs, Printers, other peripherals maintenance and repair are not our responsibility.

Zanlink registers and hosts new domain names for clients. Apart from new domain name registration, Zanlink can also host domains of clients that are hosted elsewhere with other providers. This means that if a client requires shifting the domain hosting to us from someone else, we can also accommodate that. The charges applicable are the same as registering and hosting new domains.

New domain name selected by clients depends upon its availability. If the domain name has already been taken by someone else, then it is not available. We normally give emphasize to domains such as .co.tz, .or.tz as they are more Tanzanian oriented and easy to get than .com and .org. Zanlink is also an accredited registrar for the tzNIC for .tz domains.

In order for the domain to be registered, the client needs to present the below information to us:

• Name of the Organization/Company
• Name of contact person
• P.O. Box number
• Telephone number/mobile number
• E mail address

Either call or visit our Sales department who will advise you this service aspect. The sales department will advise you on the availability of the domain, applicable fees and other aspects related to this service. You can either write to sales-zanlink@liquidtelecom.co.tz, or call 255 24 2237481 to get more information.

The domain name requires to be paid on annual basis.

You get 10 e mail accounts in the domain name that you register and host with us. You also get to do your own domain management. All our e mail accounts come with the below features

• 100 MB storage space
• Global access with our web mail system. You can check your account from anywhere in the world.
• Pop3 IMAP4 and SMTP forwarding.
• Spam filtering facilities
• Our mail server is protected with the latest antivirus software. However customers are advised to have their own antivirus protection for maximum security.

Zanlink is only responsible to provide the e mail addresses in the domain and make sure they work fine. Zanlink is not responsible to configure the e mail addresses on clients’ PCs or in their e mail programmes (outlook express, Microsoft outlook etc). Configuration of e mail address on Clients PC is their own responsibility. As long as the e mails are working online that is where our responsibility ends. All e mails are accessible on our web mail system as long as the client has the username and password for their e mails hosted by us.

It normally takes between 48 hours to 72 hours for the domain name to be registered.

Zanlink offers a variety of web hosting packages designed to meet different needs and budgets. Our services are available to customers' worldwide, and customers can access and make changes to the site anytime and from anywhere.

• First client has to register domain or shift their domain to us for us to be able to host the website in them. No website can be hosted unless there is a domain.
• The website contents have to be ready (designed and developed) to be uploaded into the domain ready to be hosted. Client can simply bring the website contents on disk/flash disk for us to upload it. If clients already have their domain then we can create a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and give access to clients to upload their website in the domain.
• Once the website is uploaded it will appear on web.

All of our hosting packages come with the following standard features:

• 24 Hour FTP Access (file transfer Protocol). This means that the client is given access to their website that is hosted on our server so they can make any changes they require to the design or contents of their websites.
• Auto responders/ Forwarders
• Backup Facility
• PHP and CGI BIN
• Web mail
• Red Hat Enterprise Servers

The web site hosting has to be paid on annual basis.

When we host clients' web sites we are not responsible for making changes to their website contents or design. That is the responsibility of the client or their web designer themselves. We can however give them full FTP control of their website so the client or their designer can make the required changes to the websites.

Contact our Sales department who will advise you this service aspect. You can either write to sales-zanlink@liquidtelecom.co.tz or call 255 24 2237480/1 to get more information.

It normally takes a maximum of 1 working day for a website to be uploaded and hosted by us - provided that the domain is already registered, and all the website contents are ready.