Dar es Salaam. With 29.8 million people, almost half of Tanzania’s population, subscribed to internet services, new research shows that Halotel has the fastest mobile internet in the country.
Ookla, which owns and operates the popular Internet speed test service speedtest.net, has released its latest Speedtest Global Index rankings for Tanzania for the first quarter of 2022, which shows Halotel outperforming major telecom companies like Vodacom Tanzania and Airtel in the mobile segment.
Halotel had by far the fastest median download speed in the first quarter of 2022 at 17.84 megabytes per second (Mbps), followed by Vodacom (12.09 Mbps), Airtel (10.6 Mbps), TTCL (10. 4Mbps).
It was revealed that Tigo Tanzania and its sister company Zantel had a median download speed of 5.99 Mbps and 4.31 Mbps respectively.
Halotel Commercial Director Abdallah Salum attributed the telecom operator’s internet speed to investment and thoughtful strategies. “Over the past three years, we have focused our efforts and strategies on expanding internet service coverage in Tanzania,” he said.
Mr Salum said that with almost 30% of customers using 4G, the company plans to increase the number to at least 60% by the end of the year.
“This is partly propelled by the increase in digital access in Tanzania and growing market demand, so more of the company’s investment will be directed towards infrastructure as part of efforts to scale up and upgrade the base transceiver station (BTS),” he said. “From where we have 2G we plan to upgrade to 3G and for areas with 3G we will upgrade to 4G,” he added.
Halotel also had the highest consistency score at 80.1%, ahead of second-placed Vodacom at 72.1%. This score shows the percentage of speed test results that achieved a minimum download speed of 5 Mbps and an upload speed of 1 Mbps.
TTCL has a consistency score of 67.5%, Airtel with 67.2%, while Tigo and Zantel have 48.9% and 37.4% respectively.
Mr. Salum added that while the telecommunications industry remains competitive, the majority of companies have increased their investment in Internet services.
“There is an increase in demand as more people have access to electronic devices and people’s demand for internet services has also improved, coupled with different government strategies,” he said.
On Wednesday this week, the report’s second-fastest mobile internet service provider, Vodacom Tanzania, signed a $10.8 million (nearly 25 billion shillings) deal with National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) to allow the former to use government-owned fiber optic cable infrastructure. .
The agreement was signed by the Managing Director of Tanzania Telecommunication Company Limited (TTCL), Mr. Peter Ulanga, and the Managing Director of Vodacom, Sitholizwe Mdlalose, to improve voice and data traffic in the Lake, Central and southern Tanzania. “This announcement reiterates our commitment as a company to Tanzania’s digitization agenda and to meet the growing demand for digital services in the country,” Mr Mdlalose said.
TTCL boss Ulanga said: “I believe that the infrastructure leased from Vodacom will enhance the use of ICT applications for sustainable socio-economic development, including the implementation of e-government, e-learning, e-health, e-commerce and much more locally and globally.”
According to the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TCRA), the national strategy aims to make Tanzania the center of the digital economy in East and Central Africa, so internet speed and access is a top priority. “At the moment, Tanzania provides one of the cheapest internet services in Africa,” said TCRA Director General Jabiri Bakari, adding that national fiber optic cable plans are in the works to improve the internet. network access beyond Tanzania.
According to the speed test report, the median latency of major mobile internet providers in Tanzania during the first quarter of 2022 puts Vodacom at the top with the lowest latency at 23ms.
Network latency refers to the delay experienced by users as data travels back and forth across the network.
With the highest internet speed, Halotel lagged its peers, recording the highest latency at 31ms, followed by Airtel at 29ms and Tigo at 28ms while Zantel has 27ms.
The Speedtest Global Index compares internet speed data from around the world on a monthly basis. Index data comes from hundreds of millions of tests performed by real people using Speedtest each month. From January 1, 2019, countries must have at least 300 unique user test results for mobile or fixed broadband in the relevant month to be included in the index.
