Can I send emails/make phone calls/send postcards from Tanzania?

Internet cafes have hit Tanzania and especially in the central area of the cities. Prices are cheap, but the connection speed is sometimes disappointing. There are post offices where you can buy stamps, envelopes and postcards. The post is reasonably reliable although it may take some time to reach its destination, however courier services such as DHL are available. Telecommunications in Tanzania is generally good. You can even use your standards GSM mobile phone in Tanzania. If you plan to use it a lot, you might consider purchasing a local SIM card.

Will I have cell phone reception on the Mount Kilimanjaro?

There is intermittent mobile coverage on the mountain. Signals are limited, but as long as the weather is relatively clear, there are places each day where you will most likely be able to pick up coverage. The guides will be able to tell you the best rocks to stand on! In case of an emergency, the guides carry mobile phones and radios.

How can I communicate from Tanzania?

Tanzania network service is maintained so as you can communicate from Tanzania to outside your country through the following ways.

Telephones
In the cities there are public coin and card phones on the street. Phone cards can be bought from post offices, street vendors, or small shops. You can make direct international calls from these. Phoning from hotels is expensive, as they add a hefty premium.

• To call Tanzania from another country
Dial the international access code: 011 from the U.S.; 00 from the U.K., Ireland, or New Zealand; or 0011 from Australia. Dial the country code 254 (Kenya) or 255 (Tanzania) and then the local number minus the first 0.

• To make domestic calls within Tanzania
For all calls within the countries, drop the country code, but the full area code (including the first 0) must be dialed along with the number. All numbers begin with a three-digit area code.

• To make international calls from Tanzania First dial 000 and then the country code (U.S. or Canada 1, U.K. 44, Ireland 353, Australia 61, New Zealand 64). Next dial the area code (drop the first 0 if there is one) and number. For international operator-assisted calls, dial 0196. Note that calls between Kenya and Tanzania and Uganda are charged at long-distance tariffs and not international. To call Kenya from Tanzania and Uganda, dial 005 followed by the area code and number. To call Uganda from Kenya, dial 006 followed by the area code and number, while calls to Tanzania require the prefix 007. Kenya and Tanzania have discontinued their "collect call" facilities. Toll-free numbers in the U.S. cannot be accessed from Kenya or Tanzania. Use of international long-distance calling cards is very limited.

Cell phones
Tanzania is awash with mobile phone operators; you'll spot advertisements for Safaricom, Zain, Celta, and several others in even the most remote corners of the country. Surprisingly, there may be mobile services even in far-flung wilderness areas (where cellular connectivity is the only means of communicating with the outside world), but limited coverage in national parks that are relatively close to major towns or cities. Most of the local operators have partnerships with international service providers -- if you want to investigate these services, it's best to make inquiries through your home operator before departure. Using a mobile phone to call internationally is very expensive, so try to avoid doing so.

You'll also pay dearly for international roaming through your service provider back home. The simplest way to have mobile phone access is to purchase a SIM card when you arrive and stock up on prepaid charge cards, which are available everywhere from formal phone shops to street vendors. If you are traveling to other African countries, opt for a Zain SIM card. They operate borderless roaming across 22 African countries, and call costs are local, not international. International calls from a Tanzania SIM card are about 50¢ a minute and local calls cost about 20¢ a minute.

Internet & E-Mail
Internet cafes in major tourist spots and in the towns and cities are easy to find. Hotels and lodges, too, are increasingly offering Internet access to their guests, though this is usually more expensive than a street-side cafe. Generally, you won't find Internet access in remote safari destinations. Although speed connections from landlines can be slow, satellite connections are continually increasing and the cost is lowering; expect to pay little more than $1 per hour. Wi-Fi is catching on in Tanzania (Arusha's International Conference Center), and the airports and some hotels and coffee shops now have Wi-Fi.

Communication network in Tanzania

Community established networks, also referred to as “community networks” (CNs), have existed for many years and provide a sustainable solution to address the connectivity gaps that exist in urban, remote, and rural areas around the world. While the global statistics estimate that about half of the world population has access to the Internet, the connectivity gap is wide between the developed and developing countries.

In Tanzania, there are 41.8 million voice telephone subscriptions and only 23 million Internet users. A study by Research ICT Africa reported that when Internet access is compared between rural and urban areas, 86% of rural dwellers remain unconnected to the Internet compared to 44.6% in urban areas. Similarly, in Tanzania, fewer women have access to and use of the Internet than men.

In order to address the connectivity challenges in Tanzania, the Internet Society Tanzania Chapter in partnership with the University of Dodoma, supported by Beyond the Net Funding Programmed, has built a pilot project using TV white space as a community network solution. The deployed network has connected four educational institutions in rural Tanzania and at the same time provided Internet access to community members around the schools. In order to achieve both technical and financial sustainability, members of Kondoa Community Network played a critical role in the deployment of the required infrastructure that finally made this project successful.

Prior to scale-up phase, the Internet Society Tanzania Chapter, in collaboration with the University of Dodoma, organized a two-day technical workshop that brought together participants interested in community networks and those already working with community radio in Tanzania. The workshop was held at the University of Dodoma 5-7 December 2018 and was attended by 45 participants in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, Loliondo, Kahama, Kondoa, Uvinza, Bukombe, Karagwe, Arusha, Kyela, Nkasi, Ileje, Makete, and Nyasa). This was the first community network and community radio workshop of its kind held in Tanzania. The workshop included facilitators from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Argentina. The official opening of the workshop was attended by Peter Msoffe, Acting Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic, Research and Consultancy of the University of Dodoma.

“Community networks are the networks which are deployed and managed by the community themselves to address the connectivity challenges, and are used to receive and exchange information that could solve community challenges,” said Msoffe. A participant from Unyanja FM Community Radio, Patrick Kossima, said, “community network[s] and community radio supplement each other. For instance, hard to reach areas that were not possible to be covered by community radio could be covered by [a] community network and in so doing both feed each other the relevant local contents around the community.”

The workshop covered topics ranging from the technical to policy matters that favor Internet access in Tanzania. “Internet Society Tanzania Chapter is committed to making the Internet to be available even in the very remote and underserved areas in Tanzania because we believe the Internet is for everyone,” said Abibu Ntahigiye, Chairperson, Tanzania Chapter. Ntahigiye presented the topic “Domain the Undo main using .tz Domain.” The workshop on the first community network and community radio in Tanzania was concluded with a visit to Kondoa Community Network, the first community network to pilot the use of television white space technology in Tanzania. While in Kondoa District, workshop participants also visited Kondoa Irangi Rock Paintings.

Tanzania Mobile Sector Mobile network subscriptions in Tanzania reached 51 million at the end of 2020. In 2019, mobile market revenues were estimated at USD 1.1 billion (TZS 2,703 billion), and the sector accounted for 1.9% of Tanzania’s GDP. However, given that hat most subscribers have more than one Sim card, the number of unique subscribers was 25 million with a unique-subscriber penetration of 41%, and a large proportion of the population (59%) remains unconnected to the mobile network.

Tanzania Mobile Internet The unique-subscriber penetration of mobile internet in Tanzania is low at 18%, less than Kenya (27%), Uganda (23%), and Sub-Saharan Africa (26%). Barriers to using mobile internet include affordability, lack of awareness, illiteracy, and lack of digital skills. However, British technology research firm Cable estimates that the average cost of one mobile gigabyte (1GB) in Tanzania is USD 0.75, making the country the 32nd cheapest in the world, and the cheapest in East Africa. Tanzania Mobile Network Operators There are seven mobile network operators (MNOs) in Tanzania: Vodacom (30.5% market share), Airtel (27%), Tigo (25.4%), Halotel (13.3%), Zantel (2%), TTCL (1.7%), and Smile (0.02%). So far, mobile operators have invested around USD 2.6 billion in Tanzania.

Investments are primarily focused on network infrastructure which is driving mobile broadband coverage expansion. Tanzania Mobile Internet Network: 4G/3G/2G Services Tanzania’s mobile internet penetration has nearly quadrupled from 2010 to 2018, to reach 18.5%, with more than eight million new mobile internet subscribers added over that period. Despite this growth, two-fifths of the country’s population still remain offline and excluded from the socio-economic benefits of the internet, and around a fifth of the population, representing 11 million people, are not covered by a mobile broadband network. The most common broadband service in Tanzania is given through 2G connections, which offers a speed of up to 0.3 Mbps and is used by 90% of the mobile subscribers in Tanzania. At the end of 2018, 3G and 4G networks covered around 61% and 28% of Tanzania’s population respectively.

Digital Tanzania Program The World Bank (WB) sponsored the Digital Tanzania Program which aims to assist the country to harness its digital potential and ensure that all citizens have access to high-quality, low-cost connectivity, that public services are easily accessible online, and that the digital economy is driving growth, innovation, and job creation. The Program will be delivered in two phases: Phase I (2018–2022) will focus on strengthening Tanzania’s core Digital Foundations – closing the connectivity gap, increasing market competitiveness and investment, and strengthening digitally enabled service delivery infrastructure and capacity within the government.

Phase II (2021–2026) will focus on Tanzania’s digital acceleration – leveraging improved connectivity and enhanced capacity for public digital service delivery to accelerate the growth of the digital economy, encourage private and public innovation utilizing digital technology, and support the expansion of digital public services offerings across key sectors. Phases I and II will involve significant collaboration with other stakeholders, including mobile operators and the private sector.