By Correspondent

TARRIFS for voice calls from Tanzania to other East African Community (EAC) member countries fell by 61 per cent between April and June 2025, following the introduction of a harmonized roaming framework in the region, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has reported.

TCRA’s April-June 2025 quarterly report shows that average voice calls to EAC countries fell from 627.80 shillings a minute in March to 247.52 in June.

The report notes a surge in outgoing voice minutes from 2021. Subscribers used 156,913,941 minutes for EAC calls between April and June 2025, compared to 9,097,165 minutes in the same quarter in 2021.

Average basic (non-bundle) tariffs on local networks have remained unchanged since June last year, stabilising at 26 and 28 shillings per minute for calls on subscribers’ networks (on-net) and to other networks (off-net).

Local short messages (SMS) were charged 7.80 shillings, and international ones 189.60 across all networks. Data prices remained 9.35 shillings per megabyte (MB).

An analysis shows that Halotel’s lower charges of 10 shillings for on-net and 20 shillings for off-net calls and five (5) shillings per SMS contribute to the average. Airtel, Yas, TTCL and Vodacom charge 30 shillings for on-net and off-net calls and eight (8) shillings per message.  

Basic voice tariffs fell by 21 per cent between June 2021 and June this year – from 34 shillings across all networks, and local SMS prices by 67 per cent – from 13 shillings to the current rates.

On-net voice bundle tariffs have levelled at 4.80 shillings since September 2024 while off-net prices fell from 6.07 shillings a minute in March to 5.96 in June 2025. Data bundles are priced at 2.12 shillings per MB and local SMS 2.12 shillings.

Voice bundle tariffs dropped by 73 percent between June 2021 and June this year – from an average 8.3 shillings a minute across networks to the current rates. Data bundles were 1.61 shillings per MB in 2021, rose to 2.17 and had levelled at 2.12 since March this year.

Subscribers used 43.3 billion minutes in the quarter ending June 2025 compared to 40.6 billion minutes in the quarter ending March this year.

Meanwhile, phones have penetrated 136 per cent of the population. This has enabled more subscribers to access advanced mobile technologies and standards such as the third, fourth and fifth generations of mobile technology (3G, 4G and 5G).

The report shows that 3G and 4G had penetrated 94 and 75 per cent of the population, and both cover 75 per cent of the country.  

5G had penetrated 5.9 per cent of the population in June this year, compared to 3.6 per cent by March. It covered 26 per cent of the country, from 23 per cent in March 2025 and 15 per cent in June 2024.

5G internet subscriptions increased from 1,185,440 in April to 1,313,013 in June 2025. The technology debuted in Tanzania in 2022.