Tanzania signs new five-year agreement with Burundi to provide it with high-speed telecoms capacity
February 27th 2024
Tanzania will resell broadband connectivity capacity to Burundi over the next five years. This is part of the terms of a partnership agreement signed last week between the historic operator Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation Limited (TTCL) and the Burundian infrastructure operator Burundi Backbone System (BBS). The value of the deal is estimated at $3.3 million.
In October 2019, TTCL and BBS had already signed an agreement for the provision of high-speed Internet in Burundi. Worth $6 million, the deal was supposed to be implemented over a ten-year period.
Burundi is a landlocked, landlocked country; it cannot accommodate an undersea fiber optic cable. It must therefore rely on coastal countries like Tanzania. The latter has three international submarine cables: 2Africa, Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and SEACOM.
The initiative should enable Burundi to improve the quality and coverage of telecoms services, particularly the Internet. The country had 1.5 million Internet users at the start of the year for a penetration rate of 11.3%, according to data platform DataReportal. The number of mobile phone subscriptions stood at 7.78 million, representing a penetration rate of 58%.
For its part, Tanzania guarantees additional revenues thanks to its National High-Speed ICT Backbone Network (NICTBB). In 2023, the country signed two separate agreements with Malawi and Uganda to connect them to its backbone. Other agreements are in progress with Rwanda, Mozambique, Kenya, Zambia… The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan should soon join the list.
Source: Agency EcoFin
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