| Tanzania will see an increase in the number of firms operating in its telecommunications industry after the sector was liberalised in February, John Nkoma, the Director-General of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority said.
"The sector is completely liberalised and we look forward to many players…From February, we have been receiving licence applications which we have been processing, and now they are about to be approved" Nkoma added.
Nkoma said he expected to license many players, both international and domestic, but could not reveal their identity because he said negotiations were not yet complete. Tanzania ended the monopoly of its fixed-line operator Tanzania Telecommunications Company (TTCL), and licensed Zantel, the Zanzibar-based telecommunications company, to compete with TTCL on the mainland.
Nkoma said since then, the government had introduced a new licensing framework that is technology neutral, meaning a company would need only one licence to offer services such as Internet, voice over Internet protocol and payphones.
"What it means is that…whether you are using GSM or CDMA or any other technology we can give you a licence to operate," he said.
Tanzania has four mobile firms – Zantel, a joint venture with the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, Vodacom, Celtel and Millicom International Cellular's Mobitel. However, despite the number of operators, telephony penetration in the east African country remains low. Only 2.5 million people have telephone connections – fixed or mobile – out of a population of 35 million.
"One of our challenges is to increase the teledensity," Nkoma said, adding that the government planned to license operators in regional and other rural areas.
Experts say Tanzania's telecommunications sector is expected to receive a big boost after TTCL's two shareholders, the government and Celtel, said they would invest $53 million in TTCL as part of an agreement to solve a long-standing ownership dispute.
Source: Reuters - WDR/Intelecon Regulatory News
|