Factors influencing acceptability of prepaid telephone service: a case of Tanzania Telecommunications Company limited

This study has mainly dealt with the newly voice service, prepaid telephone service, introduced by TTCL. This study has mainly focused on the factors which influence its acceptability in the Tanzanian community whose telecommunication market is full of competitions. The study has concentrated on how the residents of Dar es Salaam have reacted on the introduction of these services since April 2004.The survival and growth of any business entity depends on the market shares and how the same is being increased. This study has investigated whether customer base of TTCL will be increased in future or not as a result of acceptability of this new service. This prepaid system has shown to provide an effective and efficient revenue management, with reduced revenue collection costs, while at the same time enabling consumers to budget for their consumption. The study area was Dar es Salaam region which has got many prepaid customers. Information and views on the service were collected. Data analysis was done after then the necessary statistical summaries were prepared. There hypotheses were developed to test the factors influencing the acceptability of the prepaid telephone service. Results show that all three hypotheses were accepted concluding that the prepaid service is preferred to the post pay service. The factors which lead to its acceptability are expenditure control, superior customer care, customer education and affordable price and quality of services.