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Tanzania Telecommunications Report Q4 2009Product Type: Market Research ReportPublished by: Business Monitor International Published: September 2009 Product Code: R302-8135 Description The switching on of the SEACOM cable has caused excitement all around East Africa, but especially inthe places where it actually lands, including Tanzania. The provision of plentiful, reliable, inexpensiveinternational bandwidth is being credited with ushering in a new era of broadband connectivity. However,the improvements that it can bring are unlikely to be felt immediately, as there are many otherdevelopments that need to take place in order for any kind of broadband revolution to take place. As wellas the international bandwidth, Tanzania needs to keep developing its internal, high capacity backboneinfrastructure in order to facilitate the expansion and improvement of broadband access to more of thepopulation.Still, the fact that the cable is in place is one piece of the puzzle, and the rest will slowly start to follow.Tanzania does have high-speed mobile broadband networks in place, in the form of HSDPA fromVodacom, although coverage is a long way from being truly extensive. Still, once Vodacom has finaliseda deal for access to SEACOM’s bandwidth, which, at the time of writing, has not happened, users of thisservice should find it much more efficient, in some areas at least. Even with mobile technology, a lack ofhigh-capacity backbone infrastructure can be limiting, as the mobile network’s backbone infrastructurehas often been built primarily with voice traffic in mind and can lack broadband level capacity. Depending on the terms of the access and the parties involved, the access should become cheaper forconsumers, too, although there may be even more of a lag in this effectGrowth in Tanzania’s mobile market was a little muted in Q109, thanks to Zantel, which lost over500,000 mobile subscribers that quarter. It also succeeded in adding a substantial amount to its fixed-linesubscriber base, much more than in previous quarters. The origins of these changes have not yet becomeclear. The net additions to the three leading mobile operators, Vodacom, Zain and Tigo, are more inkeeping with a normal quarter, so BMI does not believe that growth has significantly slowed in themarket in general. This being said, the Zantel effect will be felt in terms of total market size for a littlewhile, and it has led to a slight downgrading of our forecast. Thanks to significant drops in ARPUs, which have been felt across Africa but perhaps particularlyharshly in Tanzania, the country has slipped down our Business Environment Ratings table from third toseventh. Table of Contents
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