[November 27th, 2012]: Status of the NICTBB and Prospects for local contents development in Tanzania

The Government considers NICTBB as an important strategic vehicle intended to provide the entire Tanzanian population with reliable, efficient and cost-effective accessibility and connectivity to ICT-infrastructures, facilities and services for enhanced socio-economic development as well as creating a Knowledge based Society.

With 7400 kms of Optic Fibre Cable already constructed, the backbone has been extended to eight border points of Sirari, Namanga and Horohoro (Kenya); Mtukula (Uganda), Rusumo (Rwanda), Kabanga and Manyovu (Burundi), Kasumulu (Malawi) and Tunduma (Zambia) with a view to fulfil the Government's commitment to connect the landlocked countries to the International submarine cables landing in Dar es Salaam (currently SEACOM AND EASSy) and thereby making Tanzania a hub of ICT infrastructure and ICT solutions within the region. Service providers in Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and Zambia have already connected to NICTBB while operators in Kenya and Uganda will soon connect to the backbone.

The NICTBB is operated as a wholesale business that is engaged in lease of capacity to Tanzania's licensed operators, i.e. Mobile network operators, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), local television and radio stations, Fixed Network, Fixed Wireless Voice and Data Service Providers.

In addressing its customer needs, the NICTBB network infrastructure consists of three protected self-healing rings known as Northern, Southern and Western rings covering the entire United Republic of Tanzania (URT). Services offered (on wholesale) include STM-1 (155 Mbps), STM-4 (620 Mbps), STM-16 (2.5 Gbps), STM-64 (10 Gbps), FE (100 Mbps) and GE (1000 Mbps).

The government of Tanzania believes that ICTs can be used to directly influence productivity, cost effectiveness and competitiveness in industries, which is the advantage developing countries can build their economies upon.

NICTBB helps to fulfil the increasing demands of information services, strengthen competitive abilities of domestic data and voice operators as well as bridging the digital divide. It is necessary in developing high speed broadband and helps to efficiently exploit the benefits from undersea submarine cables landing in Dar Es Salaam by providing high quality capacity fibre optic connectivity from Tanzania to within Africa and the rest of the world. NICTBB is redefining everything that we know in e-government, e-learning, e-health, e-commerce, etc.