As part of the investment in the country, the company plans to connect farms, lodges, schools and any type of family or business requirement that may suffer from weak or non-existent connectivity according to the Managing Director of Konnect Africa – Philippe Baudrier.
“Our Konnect satellite covers 100% of Tanzania, we aim to support economic growth in market segments, which creates jobs and facilitates financial inclusion and trade,” he recently said in a special interview. with ‘The Guardian’.
According to him, reliable broadband internet is essential to improve agricultural activity, which accounts for 26.74% of Tanzania’s national gross domestic product.
At the company’s recent launch in Dar es Salaam, the executive director of the National Network of Farmer Groups in Tanzania, Stephen Ruvuga, said most farms in the country are located in remote areas with no internet access.
“Connecting these farms to satellite broadband will allow farmers to collect valuable information such as soil moisture and dam levels as well as weather monitoring,” he said.
The company boasts of offering a unique solution in parts of Tanzania where suitable mobile, radio and fiber technology is not available.
Supporting the importance of equipping remote lodges with high-speed internet, the Managing Director of the Hotel Association of Tanzania, Kennedy Edward, said equipping lodges with internet will increase the attractiveness of hotspots in the tourism that have been affected by Covid-19 from 10.7% in 2019 to 5.3% in 2020.
The company said it analyzed the Tanzanian market before investing in an effort to understand challenges and other issues.
“That’s why I’m so excited to announce affordable internet access as low as 60,000/- with unlimited data usage,” he said.
According to him, this solution will allow even very remote villages to connect families to the digital world, saying that the company is participating in the digital transformation that the government is pushing for.
Baudrier said the company sees Tanzania as a potential to become a tech hub in East Africa, saying Konnect has ambitions to accelerate digital transformation in the country and wants to be part of the challenge.