Telecommunications began in Sudan in 1859, using wired communications in Swakin town on the Red Sea coast, eastern Sudan; it was there that Britain established a line to link the Sudan to its other colonized countries in Central and Northern Africa. Sudatel was established on 13th September 1993, Operations began on 1st February 1994. Sudatel is a publicly traded company with 893,915,388 shares (at the end of 2008), $2.5 Billion Authorized Capital, $893,915.388 Paid Capital and more than 10,000 shareholders.

The new era of telecommunication in Pakistan has brought several challenges with it, despite of the advantages it has made visible for the consumers. The most important being the challenge to keep intact the security requirements of the Government of Pakistan and to protect the new players in this field from the conventional practices of the incumbent operators to protect their market share. To overcome these challenges GoP established National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) in January 1996 under the Telecom Reorganization Act 1996 Future Thoughts ------------------------ Being aware of the new technologies, demand for new services and converged network NTC is in the process of upgrading and expanding its network. Migration from conventional TDM network to IP based Next Generation Network has been planned and being implemented. The 622 Mbps optical fiber backbone not able to meet the requirement of bandwidth hungry applications is being upgraded to 10 Gbps DWDM based technology. To improve the efficiency ERP solution has been planned and under process of implementation. To gain access to NTC users efforts are being made for frequency allocation and as a stop gap arrangement virtual WLL connections are being provided to NTC subscribers. To provide value added service from its own platform NTC is planning its own IN platform. Very soon NTC subscribers will be hearing NTC operators for customer relations, call booking and complaints through its state-of-the-art call center

NCTR was founded in 2007 as the first specialized R&D center in Sudan. The center provides a wide range of products, services and solutions that cover different aspects of the ICT fields such as Information security, networks, communication, electronics and radio systems, software solutions and consultations. Our solutions drive governmental agencies, private companies, enterprises and businesses to better work environments and higher organizational efficiency. NCTR also pays great attention to the advancement of applied research, and therefore, has founded three specialized research centers in the most prestigious universities in Sudan.