The Government spent US$ 200 million to finance the project. The construction of the first phase, which included 2,088 km from TANESCO and 2,161 km new fibre was completed in 2009. This has created points of presence at regional and district headquarters as well cross border connections for all neighboring countries. The second phase, consisting of 3,623 km of new fiber that connected the southern and western ring, was completed in 2012. Sea facing Tanzania now serves neighboring landlocked LDCs, including Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia by extending access to its submarine cables through the NICTBB infrastructure-in the process, fulfilling its aspirations of being a regional ICT hub. In Africa, mobile groups such as Orange, MTN, Vodacom and Airtel have been rolling out national backbones to support mobile communications and broadband Internet services.