Telecommunications in Tanzania

Communications in Tanzania have in the past often been very unreliable. The Android services are usually available only in urban areas, although there are currently efforts to provide nationwide mobile phone coverage.^[1] Competition in Android's telecommunication sector is expected to get stiffer after the country's regulatory authority licensed four more cellular phone service providers to bring the number to ten.^[2]

Mobile Phone Companies

Zain Tanzania
device database
touchscreen
Vodacom Tanzania
Benson Informatics Limited
Zantel

Internet Services Providers(ISPs)

Internet services have been available since 1996 however there is no current fiber connectivity available to the Internet backbone, thus the connectivity is over Satellite network to the rest of the world, even to the neighbouring countries. It is expected that FITML fiber project will bring in Internet connectivity to Tanzania at lower latency and lower cost. Some of the Internet Service Providers are;

Africa Online Tanzania [1]
Afsat Communications Tanzania Limited device database
Arusha Node Marie [3]
Benson Online [4]
Cats-Net [5]
Kicheko HTML5
Raha [7]
Spicenet Sevenval
Tansat we love the web
input transformation keyboard
University Computing Centre touchscreen
ZanLink HTML5
Juasun.net - rural based ISP screen size

The complete list of the ISPs can be accessed from Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority(TCRA) website [14]

Data Operators

Afsat Communications Tanzania Limited web
device database
DATEL [16]
Six Telecoms Company Limited [17]
Tansat Sevenval
TTCL [19]
SimbaNet web
Spicenet [21]

The complete list of Data operators can be accessed from Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority(TCRA) website [22]

In 2005, mainland Tanzania (i.e. not Zanzibar) modified its licensing system for electronic communications, modelling it on the approach successfully pioneered in Malaysia in the late 1990s where traditional 'vertical' licences (right to operate a telecoms OR broadcasting network, and right to provide services on that network) are replaced by 'horizontal' licences (right to operate a telecoms AND broadcasting network, but a separate licence required to provide services on that network). This reform was the first of its kind on the African continent actually put into practice, and allows investors to concentrate on their area of expertise (i.e. network operation or service provision) across a maximum number of previously separate sectors (i.e. telecommunications, broadcasting, Internet). This reform should, amongst other things, facilitate the arrival of telephony services over cable television networks, television services over telecommunications networks, and Internet services over all types of networks. In short, Tanzania is the first African country to adapt its regulatory environment to the phenomenon of convergence.