Tanzania’s Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring System (TTMS) has been brought online in Dar es Salaam
Provided by the partnership of Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) and Global Voice Group (GVG), the new system was inaugurated at an official ceremony in the Tanzanian capital last month.
The ceremony was attended by government officials including the Tanzanian President HE Jakaya Kikwete and representatives of the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), who will be implementing the TTMS.
TCRA director general Prof John Nkoma said, “Before the installation of this system, it was very difficult to know the exact traffic and unscrupulous people were using illegal and unlicensed international networks (in order to route calls to Tanzania) that led to the government and legal service providers losing revenue.”
The purpose of the system is to detect and track illegal communication operators as well as combating mobile phone theft and monitoring mobile money transactions.
President Kikwete said that the system had the potential to generate additional government revenue of almost US$11mn a year from the monitoring of incoming international calls alone, calling the inauguration ‘a very promising step’.
The implementation of TTMS is part of a broader push by the Tanzanian government to crack down on digital crime in the country.
Deputy communication minister January Makamba recently revealed that the government also planned to employ Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) technology in an effort to reduce mobile phone theft.
