THE Halotel has said its focus on investing in internet pushed them to the top of the list as the fastest mobile phone internet services in the country.
The latest Speedtest Global Index rankings report for Tanzania shows that the company offered by far the fastest median download speed in quarter one of this year at 17.84 Megabytes per second (Mbps) followed by Vodacom (12.09 Mbps), Airtel (10.6 Mbps), TTCL (10.4 Mbps).
Halotel's Business Centre Director Abdallah Salum stated for the past three years they directed focus and strategies into expanding internet services coverage in the country.
"This is partly propelled by the increase of digital access in Tanzania and the rising market demand, thus more of the company investments will be directed towards infrastructure in efforts to increase and upgrade Base Transceiver Station (BTS)," he said.
Mr Salum said with nearly 30 per cent of the customers using 4G, the company plans to increase the numbers to at least 60 per cent by the end of the year.
Data showed that 29.8 million people, or nearly half of Tanzania's population, subscribing to internet services.
Thus the telco said wants to upgrade its 2G platform to 3G and for areas with 3G to 4G.
The report was published by the Ookla, which owns and operates the popular speedtest.net Internet speed testing service.
Halotel also got the highest consistency score, of 80.1 per cent, ahead of second-placed Vodacom on 72.1 per cent. This score shows the percentage of speed test results that achieved a minimum 5Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload speed.
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TTCL has a consistency score of 67.5 per cent, Airtel with 67.2 per cent, while Tigo and Zantel have 48.9 per cent and 37.4 per cent respectively.
Mr Salum said while the telecommunication industry remains competitive, the majority of the companies have increased their investment in internet services.
"There is an increase of demand as more people have access to electronic devices and people's demand for internet services have also improved coupled with different government strategies," he said.
According to Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) the national strategy aims to make the country a digital economy hub in East and Central Africa, thus internet speed and access are a top priority.
"At the moment Tanzania provides one of the cheapest internet services in Africa," said TCRA director general Jabiri Bakari, adding the national fibre optic cable plans are in the pipeline to improve network access beyond Tanzania.
According to the speed test report, median latency for top mobile internet providers in the country during this year's quarter one puts Vodacom at the top with the lowest latency at 23ms.
