Fibre optic cable to link all wards by 2026

ALL wards in Tanzania will be connected to the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) by 2026 as part of the country’s strategy to ensure 80 per cent internet penetration in the country by 2025, the Deputy Minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Kundo Mathew said in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Welcoming the Uganda Minister for ICT and National Guidance, Kabbyanga Godfrey, who is on a benchmarking visit to Tanzania, Eng Kundo explained that 86,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable will be laid-out under the National Broadband Strategy, covering 2021 to 2026.

The National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) connect Regions, Districts and National border points of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi.

The Ugandan delegation is in Tanzania as part of bilateral relations between the two countries. Others in the delegation are the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Eng Geoffrey Agoi and senior officers from the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).

Tanzania and Uganda cooperate in various regional and international organisations and forums and have bilateral arrangements, including a Joint Permanent Commission of cooperation.

The deputy minister was accompanied by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Director General Dr Jabiri Bakari and TCRA management who attended the delegation from Uganda, currently in the country on a skills upgrade and experience exchange programme.

Eng Kundo explained that Tanzania’s communications policies, licensing framework and legal, regulatory and institutional framework had contributed to the growth of the sector. He added that by September 2022, the teledensity had reached 64 per cent; there were 58.1 million registered SIM cards; 31.1 million internet users and 39.6 million mobile money accounts.

He said that licences had also increased, with the applications service category jumping by almost 40 per cent within a year, from 66 in July 2021 to 111 in November 2022.

Applications services were among the four main categories of the Converged Licensing Framework (CLF) Tanzania introduced in 2005. The other categories, with the number of licences in brackets, are Network facilities (22), Network services (13), Television stations (61) and Radio stations (218). A new category for online content, introduced in 2018 has 390 online televisions.

The deputy minister described Tanzania’s recent auction of the frequency spectrum in four prime bands as crucial in accelerating Tanzania’s digital strategy.

Eleven blocks of four international mobile telecommunications bands were successfully auctioned in October and winning bidders were given roll-out obligations.

The country is expected to earn 187 million US dollars from the auctioned 11 blocks of spectrum in the 700 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2600 MHz and 3500 MHz bands on October 11, 2022, whereby some spectrum were bought at almost thrice the reserved price.

“Tanzania has adopted pro-ICT policies and supportive legal and regulatory framework towards building an ICT-driven nation comprising of knowledge-based society,” he said.

He mentioned some of the sector policies and acts as the National ICT Policy 2016, the National Postal Policy 2003, which is being reviewed, the National Broadcasting Policy 2003 and the Electronic and Postal Communications Act 2010 (EPOCA) and its regulations.

Others are the Electronic Transactions Act 2015, the Cybercrimes Act 2015 and the Data Protection Bill, which was passed by Parliament earlier this month. 

Eng Kundo also briefed the visitors on the programme to provide and manage physical addresses in Tanzania as part of the country’s digital transformation strategy.

“The programme will ensure that all citizens are accessible through their physical addresses; therefore, facilitating their participation and involvement in electronic transactions and e-commerce”, he explained.

It is expected that all individuals and businesses will have physical addresses by the end of the year, he added.