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Gamtel Gambia Co. Ltd.

Contact Address:

Gamtel Gambia Co Ltd

Branches

Gamtel House
Banjul Head Office
3 Nelson Mandela St.
The Gambia, West Africa

Tel no: +220 4229 999
Fax:              422 8004

Email: info@gamtel.gm 

Information:
The Gambia Telecommunications Company Limited (Gamtel) was incorporated as a private limited liability company under the Companies Act 1955 as amended under Cap. 95. 02 of the Laws of The Gambia 1990.

Gamtel is currently the only licensed fixed line operator in the country and commenced business on April 1, 1984. The firm took over the operations of The Gambia Telecommunications Department and Cable & Wireless PLC.

It began operations with about 2,400 customers, most of whom lived in the Banjul capital and its surroundings. When it started operations, it only had a few analogue Strowger exchanges for switching and a few analogue transmission links to connect the limited rural towns that had some service. It also had a Standard B Earth Station, built in 1979, to connect to the outside world, mainly the United Kingdom.

Between 1984 and 1986, it acquired its first digital exchange, an Alcatel E10B equipped for 5,000 lines under The Greater Banjul Area Telecommunications Project (BATP) also known as Phase I. The project was fully financed by Caisse Centrale de Co-operation Economique de France (CCCE). The project included the construction of a 4,000 line local network and offered customers International Direct Dialing (IDD) for the first time.

Between 1988 and 1990, Phase II of The Urban Telecommunications Project was implemented, adding 8,000 more lines to the network and extending service to the Major towns of Yundum and Brikama, some 18 - 25 Km outside the capital, Banjul.

Between 1991 and 1993, Phase III was implemented and Gamtel's customer base increased to 16,000. A Multi-Access Radio Telephone (IRT 2000) rural network was also deployed in the Upper River Division (URD). To connect this rural network to the Greater Banjul Area (GBA) network, a 400 km fibre-optic cable using PDH technology was laid between Serekunda and Basse. This allowed for 18 major towns on the route of the fibre to be provided with limited service.

A digital Telex switch was commissioned in 1990 and the company financed and commissioned its first major project, an analogue cellular mobile service in 1992. This remained in service until 2001, when the company commissioned a subsidiary GSM mobile firm, Gamcel, following its award of a license to operate a GSM mobile service in 2000.

Between 1993 to date, Gamtel Gambia Ltd. continued to steadily increase the size of its network as well as its coverage. It financed and commissioned a Paging service, Tamanding, in 1995 and an Internet Gateway, co-sponsored by the UNDP under its Internet Initiative for Africa (IIA). During the same period, Gamtel was tasked by government to provide a nationwide television and radio service (GRTS). By so doing, Gambians had their first nationwide TV and Radio. Prepaid calling cards and other value-added services where also provided to customers.

Presently, Gamtel employs 1,125 people, about a quarter of which are women. The operator has a fixed line customer base of over 41,000 served by two digital Alcatel switches both of which handle national and international calls. Its national transmission backbone that covers over 70% of the Gambia is 100% digital mostly using fibre-optic cables and SDH technology. There is access to telephone services within eight km of anywhere one finds him/herself in the country. There is nationwide access to the Internet, and ISDN is offered to customers on demand. Its subsidiary GSM mobile operator, Gamcel that began operations on May 25th, 2001 now has a customer base of over 65,000 most of whom are prepaid customers. At present it has 30 base stations throughout the country providing coverage to more than 70% of the geographical area of the country.

Apart from its core activities of connecting people and training, Gamtel has over the years undertaken numerous social and charitable functions. It has, since its inception, trained hundreds of local people from primary to university level, made hundreds of donations to civic society and sponsors the mortuary and a ward in the main referral hospital in Banjul.

In November 2012 Gamtel announced that it had created D1. 450 billion in revenue in 2011, compared with D1.395 billion in 2010 but made a loss of D85 million dalasi for the year 2011. This represents an increase of 4% or D0.055 billion along with a gross profit margin of 33%. The increased revenue was from data, international and interconnection services totalling D87 million.

Gamtel at 2011 year end had total non-current assets of D1.120 billion dalasi for tangible assets of investments.

Sales for 2011 totalled D970 million of which D430 million was incurred by payment of interconnection charges made by the GSM network operators for phone calls made to their network. D195 million was due to payments to foreign carriers for carrying and receiving of international calls on their networks. Gamtel had material costs of D345 million in 2011 as opposed to D68 million in 2010 - just over a four fold increase.

Gamtel also upgraded its overseas internet bandwidth from 2 STM-1s to 3 STM-1s which enhanced the total capacity of their network from 310 Megabits to 465 Megabits and up to 14 Megabits via satellite

Ownership:
The Gambia government owns 99% of Gamtel's shares and Gambia National Insurance Company (GNIC) owns 1% of shares. However, according to a report released by DT Associates in November 2011 ownership was unclear due to issues with legal documentation and a lack up current memorandum and articles is not updated with the Registrar of companies in Banjul.

Telephone Line Services:
• Voice Mail
• Call Waiting
• Caller ID
• Recorded Calls
• Call Forwarding
• Automatic Wake Up
• Abbreviated Dialling

Internet Services:
Internet dial-up access with fixed line or wireless Jamano Data, ISDN or ADSL.
 
 
 
       
 

 
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