Wednesday, 03 February 2010
Tanzania expects to finish building a $300 million fibre-optic network linking its major urban centres in June, its communications minister said on Tuesday.
Peter Msolla said the project would benefit several of the east African nation's landlocked neighbours like Zambia, Malawi and Burundi, which can access broadband from across the border.
Tanzania itself is connected to an undersea cable, SEACOM.
"We are determined to become an ICT hub within the region," the minister told Reuters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Ethiopia focused on the ICT sector.
The project is funded by the government and a soft loan of $170 million from China. Its second phase, costing about $100 million, will take broadband connectivity to villages in a country with a mobile phone penetration rate of 33 percent.
"It will have a lot of impact in terms of easy access to communications and it will be a lot cheaper compared to the satellite which has been used so far. We believe it (costs) will come down by about 80 percent," Msolla said.
The move will help many parts of the economy, he said, adding it would have a particularly profound impact on education.
"We have a tremendous shortage of teachers for secondary and primary schools. Since we will connect to schools, then it will be easier for one person in one location to teach the entire country at the same time," he said.
Tanzania has passed a new telecoms law that makes it mandatory for mobile phone companies to list on the nation's stock exchange in the next three years.
Msolla said the move would make the companies' operations more transparent, and would allow locals to take part in a sector of the economy that has been growing rapidly. Telecoms contributed about 20 percent of Tanzania's GDP in 2008, he said.
Mobile firms operating in the country include market leader Vodacom Tanzania, a unit of the South African company, and Zain Tanzania, part of Kuwaiti company Zain.
Zantel, majority-owned by Dubai-based (Etisalat), Tigo, owned by Millicom Cellular, and Dovetel Limited, trading as Sasatel, are also present.
The issuance of more licences will depend on availability of the spectrum, the minister said.
Reuters
(2 Votes)
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