Challenges of Migration from 2G to 3G/4G Mobile Broadband Connectivity and Services in Tanzania

Abstract

Despite all the efforts for many years, Tanzania still has a large proportion of the population unconnected (estimated at over 60%) due to challenges of lack of broadband infrastructure in most rural areas of the country. Recent statistics from the regulator the Tanzania Regulatory Communication Authority (TCRA) show that subscriptions for voice are at 102% and for Internet at 53% of the population. However realistic numbers are about 60% for voice and 35% for Internet due to multiple SIM subscriptions. Most worrying from the statistics is the fact that both the voice and internet tele-density growth curves appear to have flattened out indicating that there are no substantial new subscriptions for a market that has not yet reached saturation levels. Fixed broadband is less than 0.23% of Internet subscriptions with the lion's share coming from mobile broadband networks, 3G and 4G. The challenge is how to incrementally migrate 2G GSM networks to 3G and 4G networks that support mobile broadband connectivity and services in the country. In this paper we investigated and analyse the challenges of migrating existing 2G GSM networks to 3G and 4G platforms especially in rural areas of the country characterized by low population densities of less than 200 people per square kilometres. This is done by reviewing the deployment strategies considering the differences in services characteristics between voice and Internet services in the different radio operating environments while maintaining the network KPIs for mobile broadband networks.