The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has issued licenses to five more mobile phone operators. The new license holders will bring the total number of operators in Tanzania to 12.
“They are expected to enter the country’s communication industry when the process to give them network facility licensees is completed”, commented TCRA director-general John Nkoma, at a recent ICT Summit in Dar es Salaam, quoted by local daily The Citizen.
The new Tanzanian operators are MyCell, Egotel, Rural Netco, Smile and ExcellentCom.
The established operators are Vodacom Tanzania, Zain Tanzania, Tigo, Zantel, Benson Informatics, Sasatel and TTCL Mobile, with Vodacom Tanzania having the largest market share of 39%.
TCRA statistics show that service charges declined by around 75% from 2000 to end of last year and the country’s mobile market is strengthening, aided by the largest operators, Vodacom, Zain and Tigo.
Zain has already reduced its tariffs by more than 50 per cent on calls made to a favourite phone number on another network in the country and by 17 per cent for all other calls to other networks.
The same report estimates that the local mobile penetration rate would reach 77.6% by 2014.
