ECONET Wireless, the country's largest mobile operator last week launched a free phone service in a major investment into communities. The first free phone service was launched in Epworth on Thursday.

This innovation comes as another first from the mobile operator soon after the launch of a new national call centre in Graniteside industrial area in Harare.

The free phone service will be run under Econet's YourFone brand.

YourFone pay phone will provide an initiative for everyone to manage a call through "call me back" messages.

Under the service people from economically disadvantaged communities will now be able to use phones operated in strategic locations to contact their relatives, asking them to call back.

"Communication has been there since the beginning of human kind and all we are doing as Econet is making it easy and convenient for everyone to communicate," said Douglas Mboweni, Econet's chief executive officer.

Econet's free telephone service allows members of the public to make free calls to the police or an ambulance.

Econet has been aggressively rolling out payphones over the past six months, targeting rural areas and high-density suburbs.

The rollout of the payphone has been made possible by the massive network expansion that has taken Econet to more areas, making it the network with the widest coverage in the country.

The service will be available across the country.

"Not owning a cellphone will no longer be a barrier to communication," said Ranga Mberi Econet's corporate communications manager.

"What people will be able to do is approach an operator who has one of the free phones and contact their relatives who own Econet mobile phones, asking them to call them back, for no charge at all."