TANZANIA TELECOMS

June 26, 2007

Tanzania Telecoms to Increase Subscribers With Canadian Manager
By Sarah McGregor

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Tanzania Telecommunications Co. will increase its fixed-line customers and enter the east African nation's mobile-phone market after agreeing a management contract with a Canadian operator.

Sasktel, a Regina, Saskatchewan-based telecommunications company, will jointly manage Tanzania Telecoms with effect from July 1 and plans to use new technology to lure more customers, Bill Beckman, who will become chief executive of TTCL, said in an interview today in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital.

``The key objectives are to increase the number of customers, the revenue that we receive from them, and to increase the lines of business, fixed wireless, mobile wireless and fixed-line broadband,'' Beckman said.

Tanzania, with a population of 38 million people, has 146,500 fixed-line phone subscribers and 6.2 million mobile- phone users, according to the Web site of the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority. Vodacom, a unit of Vodafone Group Plc, has about 51 percent of the voice-subscribers in Tanzania, while Celtel, part of Kuwait-based Mobile Telecommunications Co., has 26 percent, the authority said.

There is room for more mobile-phone operators in Tanzania, where demand will be driven by a rising population, an expanding economy and the declining cost of technology, Beckman said.

TTCL also plans to boost its broadband Internet infrastructure, amid increasing demand for high-speed connections among Tanzanian businesses, Beckman added

Tanzania's government owns 36 percent of TTCL, while a group of telecom companies including Celtel International of the Netherlands and Detecon of Germany own 35 percent, according to TTCL's Web site. The rest is owned by local and international financial institutions and TTCL employees, it added.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah McGregor in Dar es Salaam via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net