Pan African telecommunications company — Econet has shut down its video streaming service, Kwesè Play in South Africa. Kwesè Play is powered by Roku an American streaming platform.
Kwesè Play South African subscribers confirmed on the 3rd of July 2019 that they were receiving an error code that read ‘Econet no longer offers Kwesè Play, for more information contact Econet’, each time they tried to access the service.
Econet took to their twitter handle to release a statement regarding the situation. They said they were experiencing a challenge which the technical team was working to resolve as soon as possible.
3 July 2019 – Econet Media, has noted that today customers received a notification on their Kwesé Play devices that they have been deactivated.
We apologise for this inconvenience and are working on resolving it.
We thank you for your understanding and patience.
— Kwesé Play (@KwesePlayground) July 3, 2019
Econet, my child will kill me without her cartoons. @DStv is not an option since I completely moved to Kwese Play. pic.twitter.com/sZiLkTAfue
— Local man (@tnsh_r) July 3, 2019
However, Econet released a statement later in the evening of the 3rd of July 2019 stating that Roku had shut down the service unexpectedly amidst negotiations.
Econet Media has noted that today customers received a notification on their devices that they have been deactivated.
Kwesé Play service was launched in partnership with Roku, a US-based OTT streaming platform. We have been in discussions with Roku regarding the viability of the Kwesé Play service.
See also: Kwese Gets Licence to Operate Free TV in South Africa
The closure of the service and the message relayed on the device this morning was unexpected and comes at a time when we are engaged in discussions with Roku about their future plans on Africa.
We apologise for the inconvenience and are working on resolving this. Detailed communication will be provided to all customers in due course. (Source: mybroadband.co.za)
Roku, however, released a counter statement that Econet is no longer in partnership with them and that Econet is shutting down Kwesè Play.
Econet licensed our platform to deliver the Kwesé Play streaming service to its customers. Econet is shutting down the Kwesé Play service and is no longer working with Roku. For more information contact Kwesé/Econet. (Source: mybroadband.co.za)
There is no statement from Econet regarding this yet, but we will update once one comes up.
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