Omnitele Ltd., www.omnitele.com, johanna.hurmerinta@omnitele.com
Helsinki, Finland, May 15th, 2012

Independent tests in Dar Es Salaam’s mobile networks have shown significant differences in QoS between Tanzanian mobile operators. Omnitele, a Finnish telecommunications engineering and consulting company, conducted city wide service benchmark tests on Zantel, Tigo, Vodacom and Airtel mobile networks in March 2012.

The main purpose of the benchmark testing was to provide Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) with an understanding of capital’s mobile networks service quality among local competition and against international standards.

The Omnitele tests covered both voice and data QoS measurements in Dar Es Salaam in all four networks. All networks were measured simultaneously.

Omnitele tests showed that there are significant differences between operators. For example call setup success rate varied from best being 97,2 % and worst being only 86,5 %. In average data download throughput speeds, the variation was from 543 kbit/s to 1322 kbit/s, i.e. the best network offers more than double the speed compared to the slowest network.

The results suggest that KPI requirements set by TCRA are not fully met by all operators. Although the QoS in general is on an acceptable level in Dar Es Salaam networks, TCRA will continue monitoring the development of QoS and take corrective actions when required.

TCRA Director General, Professor John S. Nkoma stated that the research gives TCRA real data with numbers about the QoS in the networks and will form a good basis for TCRA to start monitoring the operators performance continuously.

For more information, please contact:

Johanna Hurmerinta, Marketing and Communications Manager, Omnitele Ltd., tel. +358 44 767 1387, email: johanna.hurmerinta@omnitele.com

John S. Nkoma, Director General, TCRA, tel. +255 22 2199760 – 8, email: dg@tcra.go.tz