Each partner state is investing heavily in fibre optic network to cover the capital city, key border posts with neighbours, provinces and districts. Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania cables cover more than 15,600 kilometres (km), according to official data from telecom regulators.
Rwanda has just completed a 2300km cable costing more than $60 million, which was collected from the sale of a mobile license. Korea Telecom (KT) was hired to layout the cable, according to the government.
The cable covers the capital Kigali, main border posts with Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and DR Congo. It also covers all the four provinces, main police headquarters, universities and other remote government and military offices.
Tanzania continues to lay its $170 million, 10,000km plus cable, according to Prof. John S. Nkoma, the Director General of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA). Nkoma was in Kigali last week attending the East Africa Communications Organisation (EACO) 18th Congress.
"This is a big project. First we will link our neighbours and then our regional headquarters," Prof. Nkoma said in an exclusive interview. He said linking the cable to main borders with the neighbouring countries is almost finished.
This includes Kenya through Namanga, Uganda through Mutukura, Rwanda through Rusumo, Burundi through Kabanga, Zambia through Tunuma, and then to Malawi.
However, he said that for the cable to reach deep remote areas, which is known as last mile connection, the private operators would have to take it from where the government has reached it.
Phase I of the project covers 7000km and Phase II is 3000km. The government of Tanzania borrowed about $170 million to invest in the project. The official said that the government is looking at various benefits from the cable including facilitating e-governance, e-health, e-commerce and e- learning.
Burundi is also laying out the cable of 1300 km with the help of $10.5 million grant from the World Bank. The cable will cover key entry points-two on the Rwandan border and one on the Tanzanian side. The cable will also cover the capital Bujumbura before covering all the 17 provinces.
The first phase is expected to be ready early next year, according to Mr. Salvator Niyibizi from the Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications of Burundi. The cable is expected to reduce the cost of internet to the tune of 70% and above, he said.
Currently, telecom operators in Burundi pay US$2,500-3,000 per Mbps (megabyte per second) per months for international bandwidth via satellite connectivity.
Burundi Backbone Systems (BBS), a company created by the consortium of the telecom operators and the government is currently coordinating the works of laying the cable. ZTE, a Chinese firm has been awarded the tender to lay the cable.
In Uganda, the government acquired a Chinese loan of about $102 million to implement the 2,000km plus cable, according to Patrick Mwesigwa, the acting head of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). He said Uganda is implementing the backbone project in three phases with phase I covering the capital Kampala, Entebbe, and Jinja towns.
Phase II is connecting Kampala to the Northern region and it has so far reached the Sudanese border and terminal equipments are being installed on the laid cables.
Phase III, which will connect Southern Uganda up to Rwanda, is expected to begin in the course of the next financial year starting July 30.
"By mid-next year, the national backbone should be completed," Mr. Mwesigwa said. He noted that the Ugandan cable has two components-one for the e-government and another with spare capacity for the private operators to lease.
Kenya is also investing $60 million in the National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI). The money is channelled through the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), which regulates the communications sector.
Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE and a third firm Sagem have been selected to lay out the cable. Some 5,000km of the cable had been laid down by June 2010.
They five partner states plan to link their cables in one network in the quest to lower the cost of communication by increasing the speed of internet and capacity.
This will be possible with the landing of the submarine cables in Kenya and Tanzania, which will be linked, with the terrestrial backbone cables for high-speed and low-cost international bandwidth, according to officials.
This means that the East African region will make a major shift from the age-old, expensive and slow satellite connectivity thus increasing internet's impact on businesses, governments and individual communication needs, experts say. Telecommunications regulators from these partner states are also pushing for a regional internet exchange point to keep traffic within the region local.
This means if an internet user in Tanzania sends an email to another user in Rwanda, the email will not first go to another server in London or New York; it will go straight from Tanzanian servers to Rwandan servers.
This will increase the level of security of online traffic and confidence among the internet users in the region. With high speed and reliable internet connectivity, experts in these governments believe that services like e-health, e-commerce and online learning will become a reality. This will have lasting positive impact on the region's economy.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Bosco Hitimana
Quelle/Source: East African Business Week, 05.06.2011
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
