MAP > Internet Providers in Gambia

The Gambia experiences an increased take-up of mobile money solutions. The Gambia’s telecom market has been dominated by incumbent Gamtel that retains the monopoly on the fixed line telephony services. Usually, four mobile networks are operating. Here, the market leader in the Africell, with 62% share of the subscribers as of 2016 November while the Comium, as well as the Qcell, get to compete closely for the second as well as third place. The Gamtel’s mobile unit by the name Gamcel is by far smallest operator with close to 10% share. The mobile penetration has been well above African average; itself is a statement to the poor condition of fixed-line infrastructure and lack of the availability of the fixed services in the rural areas of the country.

Despite incumbent having a relatively developed national fiber backbone networks, a low fixed-line penetration hindering the internet usage. Here, there are three licensed ISPs, that are small operators serving the local areas and hence the competition is very minimal. The launch of the second 3G mobile broadband services in early 2012 was able to bring competition to the internet sector has also been served by the WiMAX, EV-DO, and DSL wireless broadband.

Landing of first international submarine fiber optic cable in the country in the year 2011, followed by the second one more recently, goes on and dramatically increases the internet bandwidth and also reduced the cost of the internet services for the end-users. Some of the companies which have been mentioned in this report include Airstrip, Gambia Telecommunications (Gamtel), Comium, Globacom, GamNet, Africell, QCell, Thuraya and QuantumNet.

Some of the key developments in this report include:
- Report update does include the Gamtel financial data, the Africell subscribers updates to November of 2016.
- Qcell was able to launch the Qodoo Mobile money service.
- Progressing political chaos and this is following the 2016 election.
- The Gamtel reports a decline in revenue.
- The Gamtel contracts the Huawei for the fiber backbone project.
- Netpage opened the Gambia’s debut commercial LTE based broadband service.
- Mobile penetration has broached 150%.
- The International Network Management Center launched, facilitating the traffic on the Ace cable.
- Africell gets to contract Aleppo for the data solutions.

Here are some of the estimated market penetration rate in the Gambia’s telecoms sector for the year 2016:

- The Mobile Sim- 154%.
- The Internet users-16.9%
- Fixed lien telephony-2.2%
- The penetration of the telecom services: Penetration.