Tanzania Telecoms Operators to Launch 4G LTE Technology

Tanzania’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry is expanding fast since 4G LTE (4th Generation Long Term Evolution) mobile broadband service is finally being widely spread in the country.

Following the projects started in 2012 among telecommunications industry leader Alcatel Lucent, Smile Telecom Holdings Ltd (Smile) and Telesis Tanzania, the country will be supplied with 4G LTE services by October 2013.

Thanks to the technology provided by Alcatel-Lucent, African telecommunications operator Smile launched the service in several districts of Dar es Salaam, including Mikocheni, Massani Peninsula, Oysterbay and Sinza, with mobile broadband speeds of up to 4 times as fast as 3G.

After enabling Telesis Tanzania, which operates as a Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA), with high-speed mobile broadband technology, Alcatel allowed the latter to offer the service for a number of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) which serves their customers using Telesis’ infrastructure.

The LTE network offers speeds exceeding 100 megabits per second (Mbps) which is particularly effective when transferring the large amounts of data needed to support bandwidth-intensive services.

More recently, Vodacom Tanzania conducted a 4G trial in Dar Es Salaam using Nokia Siemens Networks’ enabling LTE mobile phones to fallback to GSM and 3G networks for voice calls. Following this successful trial, Vodacom Tanzania is now launching the service to its customers.

Vodacom Tanzania Managing Director, Mr Rene Meza, stated that the company selected Nokia Siemens Networks because of its proven capability in reframing 1800 MHz spectrum for LTE.