Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has ordered telecommunication companies to improve quality of their services in 15 districts which are said to experience flaws.
The regulator met the mobile network service providers yesterday 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.
TCRA said it examined Unguja, Pemba, Kyela, Mpanda, Dodoma, Nkasi, Sumbawanga, Moshi, Temeke, Kigamboni, Ubungo, Kinondoni, Ilala, Tabora, and Tanga and discovered some service providers were providing low quality of services.
During the meeting held at the TCRA’s main office in Dar es Salaam, representatives from Vodacom Tanzania, Mic Tanzania (Tigo), Aitel, TTCL, and Halotel discussed with representatives from the department of licensing and compliance on how to rectify the situation as soon as possible.
“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 areas 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 end of the year to see if they have worked in any regions where the quality of the services has been deemed to be subpar,” remarked TCRA principal telecom engineer, Mr Mwesiga Barongo, who presided as chairman of the sessions.
“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 end of the year,” added Mr Barongo.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the firms 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 consumers enjoy quality services.
“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 Vodacom’s network director Andrew Lupembe.
TCRA 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.
Such standards cover network coverage, voice quality, data speed and SMS delivery, among other test areas.
No comments:
Post a Comment