By Our Correspondent
THE Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) and the country's Telecommunications Service Providers convened to discuss measures to raise the quality of voice, data, and SMS services, particularly in areas where the provision of such services has not met the necessary quality requirements.
At the TCRA's main office in Dar es Salaam, representatives from Vodacom Tanzania, Mic Tanzania (Tigo), Aitel, TTCL, and Halotel met with representatives from the department of licensing and compliance to discuss potential areas for improvement in the services offered by the latter in light of the regulator's quality of service (QoS) measurements carried out in the early months of the year.
The two parties talked about how service providers can work to address service flaws in areas that have been identified as needing improvement. TCRA will perform a follow-up inspection after receiving the service provider action plan to see if service providers have made the necessary modifications.
"Each service provider's test results for service quality varied, so we asked them to create a work plan that would guarantee service improvements in the 15 parts of the country that we had examined. This was done in places where the quality of the service was low. After that, TCRA will do another assessment before the year is over to see if they have worked in any regions where the quality of the services has been deemed to be subpar” remarked Mwesiga Barongo, who presided as chairman over the sessions, which took place concurrently at the regulators' facility in the city.
TCRA examined Unguja, Pemba, Kyela, Mpanda, Dodoma, Nkasi, Sumbawanga, Moshi, Temeke, Kigamboni, Ubungo, Kinondoni, Ilala, Tabora, and Tanga, according to Barongo. He also stated that some service providers were discovered to be providing subpar services and were given instructions to rectify the issues as quickly as feasible.
At that meeting, TCRA gave service providers instructions on how to make these improvements as quickly as possible and how to contact TCRA for advice and support if they run into problems, particularly when it comes to obtaining permissions for "right of way" and installing infrastructure.
"We are aware that MNOs may run into obstacles when implementing these directives, therefore we have requested them to get in touch with us if they do. As the regulator, we want to see all of them improve the standard of their rendered services, and we will review their level of customer satisfaction in three to six months before the year is over” added Barongo.
Speaking outside of the meeting, service providers provided their guarantee of the improvement in the quality of services in all areas that the regulator had identified as needing immediate improvement to ensure that "wananchi" obtain quality communication services.
'On behalf of our company, we are committed to making sure that we comply with all the instructions given to us by the Authority, and we will make sure we follow all directives unremittingly as provided by our regulator,' said Andrew Lupembe, Network Director from Vodacom Tanzania.
The Communications Authority assesses the quality of the services offered by telcos on a quarterly basis and then generates a test report that is compared with the one that service providers also submit. The TCRA then issues instructions to service providers on how to improve the quality of the services they provide, particularly in those areas where the communications regulator has determined that they are not meeting the necessary standards, such as network coverage, voice quality, data speed, and SMS delivery, among other test areas, which are among those.
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