"We have been disconnected but we have since written a letter to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) explaining our situation that we need 710,000 US dollars to offset our dues," Wellington Makamure, the state-owned TelOne's managing director told AFP.

"They (RBZ) have helped us before and we are hopeful that the funds will be made available," to bail the firm out, he said.

The move has resulted in slower browsing speeds for internet users.

"This is catastrophic as all legal Internet Service Providers (ISPs) utilise TelOne for their outgoing bandwidth to the World Wide Web as well as for e-mail traffic," MWeb, the country's largest ISP, said in a statement.

"Thus all such ISPs have and are being affected by this down time. In short, this is causing an almost collapse of the Internet in Zimbabwe."

Makamure said the country is currently "re-routing every internet communication using other various options", but did not explain further.

The southern African country is in the midst of an economic crisis characterised by four-digit inflation, soaring poverty levels, an unemployment rate hovering at over 70 percent and chronic shortages of fuel and basic goods such as cornmeal.

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