TANZANIA Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL) said on Thursday it is far away from insolvency because its main business is expected to increase by 50 per cent this year.
TTCL’s main business is networking firms via broadband, internet bandwidth and wholesale administration and said it has so far signed projects worth 15bn/- this year. Last year it had projects worth 10bn/-.
The firm’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Kamugisha Kazaura, said the contracts at hand involved only corporate clients, while there was a lot expected this year.
“Though we (TTCL) are facing financial challenges but the business ahead is very promising and we are far from liquidation,” Dr Kazaura told the ‘Daily News’ during the National Insurance Corporation (NIC) fibre cable project handover.
The CEO said the issue of bankruptcy was the result of poor interpretation and analysis of TTCL monetary state of affairs, but the firm’s operations are ‘sound.’
“Currently, we are in discussions with the government to turn what they owe us into capital,” Dr Kazaura said. He did not go into details.
TTCL, which handles the national fibre-optic cable network also termed as the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB), said currently all Tanzania’s neighbours were at their subscription docket.
TTCL’s Chief of Sales and Marketing, Mr Peter Ngota, said by July the firm will start offering mobile phone services using 3G and 4G’s network.
“Previously we concentrated on corporate customers but come July we want to offer 100 per cent mobile services in the country,’ Mr Ngota said.
He said TTCL will use satellite in the areas where tele-signal are weak as a measure to assure superior quality and efficiency to its customers countrywide.
Last week, TTCL signed a 182-million US dollars deal with Chinese’s Huawei Technologies to upgrade and expand its fixed and wireless networks.
Under the terms of the contract - the first phase of which is expected to conclude in June where Huawei will upgrade the TTCL’s 2G and 3G networks and also deploy 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.
The agreement will also see Huawei deploy networks in rural areas in line with a Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF) contract won by TTCL in February 2014.
Through the NICTBB, Tanzania has been connected with East Africa’s submarine cable networks including SEACOM, EASSY and SEAS.
TTCL connects Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia and Malawi through fire optical cable. At the moment, TTCL is supplying 1.0 gigabytes of internet bandwidth to Rwanda, the 10 year deal worth 6.7-million US dollars.
Meanwhile, Dr Kamugisha said they have reconnected the local government optical cable network after an agreement with the government over the mode of payment which he did want to disclose.
Source:Dailynews
