Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIANS yesterday joined their colleagues in the world to commemorate the global telecommunications day.
The day reminds governments across Africa and all stakeholders to continue attracting investments to enhance efficient communication that reaches more people.
Effective communication is an important catalyst in growing robust economy.
Tanzania has made great strides in investing in the communication sector in view of bringing efficient services to all people, particularly those in the rural areas.
For some years now, the Tanzania government has been promoting communication by ensuring all remote areas, especially locations which do not attract businesses are connected to telecommunication services.
Through the Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF), the government has managed to connect various areas and millions of Tanzanians to telecommunication network.
Today, Tanzanians who live in remote villages in the southern regions can now communicate with their colleagues in the Lake zone without any problem.
It is through UCSAF efforts Tanzanians in rural areas are capable of participating in various businesses through mobile phones.
Farmers are able to easily know market prices for their produce, including simplifying communication between them and traders.
UCSAF has been throwing its weight in promoting the participation of the public and private sector in the provision of universal communication services to the rural and underserved areas as well as creating a framework for an open and efficient access to and use of communication networks and service in production and availability of competitive market.
The latest development was in February this year when the Fund revealed that it signed contracts to bring the telecommunications services to 1,057 wards with 3,392 villages in the country by October this year.
Studies from different sources show that Sub-Saharan Africa now has more than 670 million mobile phone subscribers.
Mobile technology is playing a key role in transforming agriculture sector in Africa, meaning that governments in Africa must continue intensifying efforts to avail telecommunication in rural areas where agriculture is practiced to transform the industry.
As it has been argued above mobile phone service has become an important tool through which farmers gain access to vital information about prices of crops before they travel long distances to markets and ensure they negotiate deals with traders and improve their timing of getting crops to the market.
Considering the fact that the country moves towards industrial economy, the telecommunication in rural settings will continue to attract more businesses, meaning that investors in the telecom sector must now exploit the growing business avenue.
