The United Republic of Tanzania is a littoral state of the Indian Ocean located between 29 E and 40 E and latitudes 1 S to 11 S (See Fig .1). The United Republic of Tanzania is made up of a union of two formerly independent countries -Tanganyika (on the mainland) and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba in the Indian Ocean. Tanzania mainland (formerly Tanganyika) has an area of 94,000 square kilometres of which 20,000 square kilometres is covered by lakes. The islands of Zanzibar and Pemba have a combined area of 2,500 square kilometres.
The most recent population census in Tanzania was conducted in 1985. Based on that census, the population of Tanzania in 1995 is estimated to be 30 million growing at an average annual rate of 2.8 percent. The overwhelming majority of the rural population consists of small holder farmers and herders.
The primary economic activity in Tanzania is agriculture which in recent years has accounted for about 40 percent of the GDP and about 70 percent of annual export earnings. Tanzania also has a small industrial sector and a small manufacturing sector, both accounting for less than 20 percent of the GDP.
Between 1967 and 1991 Tanzania followed a socialist economic philosophy. A large parastatal sector was built up to carry out activities in the sectors of industry, agriculture, transport and communications, mining, education, health, fisheries etc. But starting in 1991, Tanzania has been following a free market, capitalist philosophy. The government has started divesting itself of all production parastatals and is encouraging private sector participation in the economy.
For about the past thirty years, Tanzania has been ruled by one political party. In 1992, however, Tanzania adopted a multi-party political system. The first multi-party parliamentary and presidential elections were held in October, 1995.
Economic and Political liberalization has gone hand in hand with the liberalization of policies governing the news media. Tanzania has gone from a state where all news media were government controlled to a state where there is vibrant private press, private radio stations and private television companies.
In April, 1964, Tanganyika united with the Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar and Pemba to form the United Republic of Tanzania.
Tanganyika (the mainland part of Tanzania) was a German colony up to 1918, the end of the First World War. From 1918 to 1961 Tanganyika was ruled by Great Britain as a Trustee Territory of the League of Nations (1918-1945) and of the United Nations (1945-1961). Tanganyika obtained her independence from Great Britain in 1961 and became a republic in 1962.
Telecommunications services in Tanzania are provided by one public switched telephone network (PSTN) operator, the Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL). Private telecommunications networks are also operated by the railways, the harbors, the electric utility, the military and security establishment and private and public mobile and non-mobile radio communication systems.
Although the military and other security services operate private radio and telecommunication networks, no data on these networks are available in the public domain and therefore, these networks will not be covered in this chapter. Of the remaining private networks, the large ones belong to the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO), SITA (the airline reservation system) and the railway signalling and telecommunications systems of the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) and the Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA).
The TAZARA telecommunications system links all stations along the railway line. The system has automatic exchanges in all electrified towns and magneto exchanges in non-electrified towns. Some magneto exchanges have been replaced with automatic ones by using photovoltaic power systems in non-electrified stations.
The TRC telecommunication system also links all stations along the railway network. The TRC network also has automatic exchanges in electrified towns and in stations with photovoltaic power systems. It uses magneto exchanges in other stations. Maintenance of the TRC network is done under contract by TTCL.
The SITA airline reservation system links major airline offices in Dar es Salam with other offices worldwide via leased voice grade cir uits from Dar es Salaam through Nairobi in Kenya to London. Although the SITA network is a packet-switched network, it is operated in a circuit-switched mode from Tanzania to London. Within Tanzania, the Air Tanzania Corporation (ATC) operates terminals in major up-country towns it serves and in Zanzibar. These terminals access the SITA network through a gateway in Dar es Salaam. The ATC network uses a star topology with messages between any two terminals in the network having to pass through the node in Dar es Salaam. The SITA network enables any ATC terminal to access, store and/or retrieve data from host computers belonging to SITA that are situated in Georgia, U.S.A.
The TANESCO telecommunication system provides voice communication services needed to control the operation of its interconnected electricity generation, transmission and distribution system. In order to improve the reliability in operation of the interconnected network, TANESCO has installed a system for supervision, control and data acquisition (SCADA) built up as follows:
- a control centre in Dar es Salaam
- a SCADA system connected to existing power plants and substations with possibilities of up to 50 connections.
The SCADA system transmit data over voice grade circuits using several voice frequency telegraph (VFT) channels using frequency modulation (FM) in accordance with CCITT recommendations R.35 (50 Baud), R.37( (100 Baud) and R.38A (200 Baud). Separate VFT channels also are also provided for telephony and telex systems.
The TANESCO telephone system currently has 15 automatic exchanges with a maximum capacity of 288 connections out of which 75 connections are used as trunk lines.
TANESCO's telephone system has more sophisticated traffic handling facilities than those available on the TTCL network. TANESCO's system, for example, offers a conference facility, multi-address signalling and prioritized customer categories. The telex system operated by TANESCO links 10 substations and offers full duplex communication between the substations.
Voice telephony and telex services are offered by the Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited, the only PSTN operator so far licenced. The PSTN has switching, transmission and subscriber loop facilities. In switching there is a diversity of equipment ranging from step-by-step (S x S) exchanges still in use on the network through crossbar exchanges to digital exchanges.
Tanzania has a total of 218 exchanges ion 1995 - out of which 34 exchanges with 39,000 direct exchange lines (DELs) are digital exchanges. The number of exchanges, suppliers and other data on exchanges is shown in Table 1. All manual exchanges are from Ericsson of Sweden. The total installed capacity of the exchanges by the end of 1995 will be 130,00 lines. The average exchange fill is about 74 percent and 99,000 direct exchange lines (DELs) will be connected by the end of 1995. Of the direct exchange lines, 38 percent were served by 32 analog exchanges and 34 digital automatic exchanges served 52 percent of the lines. The remainder of the lines were served by 152 small manual exchanges. Seventy percent of the exchanges, serving over 40 percent of the subscribers are over 20 years old and in poor condition.
In 1995, the telephone density in Tanzania at 0.33 DELs/100 population is among the lowest in the world. Service is concentrated on Dar es Salaam with all major towns in Tanzania and with the neighboring countries of Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. International Voice traffic is transmitted via Standard A and Standard B earth satellite stations at Dar es Salaam. It is projected that in 1998, the telephone density will increase to .62 DELs per 100 population.
There is an automatic international digital telex exchange in Dar es Salaam. Telex service is also available to 15 other major towns in Tanzania served by 3 analog and one digital exchange. Total telex capacity is about 4,000 subscribers.
Although the only problem with telex service is inadequacy, telephone service is not only inadequate but is also congested and unreliable. The inadequacy of the telephone service is so severe that the number of customers waiting to be provided with telephone service country wide is about 150,000 whereas the number of DELs is 99,000. The real pent up demand is estimated to be 400,000. Congestion on the Network is mainly caused by poor maintenance and inadequate capacity (both switching and transmission capacity), on the trunk network. The poor maintenance results in high fault rates with an average of about 70 percent of DELs being in working condition at any one time.
The traffic on the network of the Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL) is 60 percent local and 30 percent trunk with the balance being international traffic.
The service offered by TTCL and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the company and the Government of Tanzania set up specific Performance targets on network performance, revenue generation and staffing which TTCL has to meet. An independent consultant is engaged annually by the regulatory authority to carry out a performance audit of TTCL verify whether TTCL is meeting the MOU and licence targets.
Some of TTCL's customers have started using "call back" (or call reorigination) equipment to take advantage of the low telecommunication tariffs available in the United States. The use of the call back facility has had a negative impact on the revenue that TTCL obtains from international traffic.
Tanzania is one of the 25 poorest countries in the world. As such it receives most of it's aid from developed countries in the form of grant rather than loans. The telecommunications sector has not been in exception. Prior to the inauguration of the Telecommunications Restructuring Program (TRD), some developed countries provided grants which enabled TTCL and it's predecessor TPTC to rehabilitate and expand the telecommunication network in Tanzania.
Some of the donor countries which have provided grants for investments into the telecommunications network in Tanzania have not been keen to see TTCL privatized. These countries have called for a feasibility study on privatization of TTCL, specifically taking into account investments made by these countries into TTCL through grants to the Government of Tanzania, be carried out in 1996.
In the 1990's, the International Telecommunications Union, conceived the idea of creating a project (named the WorldTel Project) whose aim was to bridge the ever-increasing gap in telecommunications between developed and developing countries. The poor economic conditions obtaining in developing countries deters private investors from putting up capital for the development of telecommunications in those countries. The WorldTel Project was aimed at mobilizing private capital for investment in the telecommunications sector of developing countries. The WorldTel Project was launched with the backing of the ITU in January, 1995.
Tanzania licenced a private company to offer mobile cellular telephone service starting in November, 1993. The company used analog technology to provide the service to customers in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.
In 1994, another private company was licenced to offer mobile telephone services to the areas of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. The latter company uses digital (GSM) technology.
TTCL intends to offer in the near future mobile cellular telephone service to some of the other large towns in Tanzania.
Data services are to be provided in Tanzania starting in 1996 through a joint venture company between TTCL and a French company. TTCL also intends to start offering paging services in the near future.
Electronic mail services are at their infancy in Tanzania with less than 10 nodes connected to the FIDONET network. The largest number of E-mail users is at the University of Dar es Salaam whose FIDONET node supports about 120 points and daily international traffic is 200 KB. The Computing center at The University, which operates the e-mail system, also operates terminals where the public can send and receive e-mail messages.
Full Internet services will be available for the first time in Tanzania starting in January, 1996. Via a leased circuit to Uninet (South Aftica), The leased circuit will have 9.6 Kbps of capacity. The University of Dar es Salaam will be the first institution to offer Internet services in Tanzania.
TTCL is obligated to pay the following taxes to government:
The operating licence of TTCL permits the company to engage itself in businesses other than telecommunications. Currently the company is operating a garage to service and repair its vehicles and a printing press. The current policy of the company is, however, that of divesting itself of all non-core businesses.
The Government of Tanzania established in 1994 the Tanzania Communications Commission to regulate, among other things, the provision of telecommunication services in Tanzania. In that regard, major functions of the Commission are:
The Tanzania Communications Commission is mandated to promote the development of rural telecommunications in Tanzania. To achieve this objective, the Commission has set up a Rural Telecommunications Development Fund to which all licenced operators of telecommunications networks in Tanzania have to contribute. This fund has so far not been set up. Once it is set up, however, all companies licensed to povide telecoms services in Tanzania will be obligated to contribute the fund.
The Tanzania Communications Commission (TCC) granted a licence to TTCL in late 1994 allowing TTCL to provide telecommunications services in Tanzania. The main highlights of the licence are:
The licence granted to TTCL commits it to the provision of universal service. Since most people in Tanzania live in rural areas where there is little business to pay for elecommunication facilities, provision of universal service is to be made possible by requiring all telecommunications licences to contribute to a Rural Telecommunication Development Fund that will cater for the expansion of telecommunication services to the rural areas.
Future activities in the telecommunications sector will have to address the following problems currently afflicting the telecommunication network in Tanzania:
Prior to 1991 the approach to network expansion and to solving the constraints mentioned above was ad hoc and without a strategic approach. Starting in 1991 TTCL has reviewed the existing quality of service and areas for improvement have been made broadly defined. in broad terms these areas are:
The licencing of two mobile cellular telephone operators in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar has also recently allowed a private company to break ground for an each satellite station and to put up exchanges that will enable the company to offer telecommunication services in Zanzibar.
So far there is one company offering mobile cellular communications services. The second operator will commence operations later in the year. The current operator has 2,5000 subscribers and the tariff is USD 0.4 per minute for local calls. The quality of service is good although there is congestion between about 0930 to 1200 hours.
Only one company, ZANTEL, has so far applied for and been granted a license to provide basic telecommunications services in Tanzania. ZANTEL will provide basic telecommunication services in Zanzibar. It will also provide international telecommunications services using it's own satellite earth station. ZANTEL received its license from the Tanzania Communications Commission.
ZANTEL is set up as a joint venture company between the Government of Zanzibar and a private company based in Ireland. The joint venture company is responsible for obtaining financing for the implementation of the telecommunication project in Zanzibar. The Government of Zanzibar is not required to contribute funding in the joint venture company but modalities will be worked out for it to be an equity shareholder in the joint venture company.
The funds for the project, estimated at USD 25 million will be raised via a combination of:
medium term suppliers credits
- support from Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US Government organization
- support from the United States Agency for International Development
- other participants comprizing local, private and foreign investment groups
The ZANTEL network shall comprise the following:
Telecommunication services in Tanzania are provided to only a few individuals. These services will very soon cover not only voice telephony but also data and paging services. The services currently provided are inadequate and poor. A program for an expansion of the service, rehabilitation of the network and training of staff that has been embarked upon is hoped to improve the situation. The liberalization of the telecommunication sector, allowing in more operators and service providers, angers well for the future of telecommunications in Tanzania.