MAP > Internet Providers in Tanzania

The government has embraced competition in telecom market, and this is what has encouraged private sector, and this is despite it having taken control of incumbent Telco, TTC that was formerly referred as TTCL in the year 2016 on June. Foreign participation has also been encouraged to promote the economic growth as well as the social growth. The policy reforms have also led to the telecom sector becoming among most liberal in the African continent. But, the high import tariffs on the telecoms equipment as well as taxes on the telephone facilities by the various authorities have still placed a burden on the investors as well as the operators.

Tanzania mainly has 2 fixed-line operators, namely, TTC and Zantel, as well as eight operational mobile networks with 4 additional players that are well licensed under the new converged regulatory period with the four major operators, Bharti Airtel, Tigo, Zantel Mobile, and Vodacom penetration rates have risen to reach 83% by the year 2017 on March. In recent years, the price war among the players has been affected by smaller operators that have suffered from the customer churn. Converged licensing regime has brought very many players into the market.

Liberalization of the Voice over Internet Protocol telephony and the introduction of the 3rd as well as 4th generation, (3G & LTE), the mobile services as well as the wireless broadband networks that have boosted internet sector, that has been hampered by the low level of growth of tradition fixed-line network. Following launch of the mobile broadband service, mobile network operators have gone on to become leading internet service providers. Operators have been hoping for the revenue development in mobile data services market, given that voice market has entirely been prepaid and the voice ARPU progresses to decline.

When it comes to this, no single company have invested in the network upgrades. The fast developing source of the revenue is mainly from mobile transfer as well as the m-banking services. Landing of first fiber optic international submarine cable in this nation in recent years that have revolutionized market that up to this point entirely does depend on the expensive satellite connection. In parallel, the government has been working on later phases of the national fiber backbone network that has been aimed at connecting the population centers around this nation. The government has gone on and become even more determined to be able to manage the telecom sector better.