Currently the country continues to address the enabling factors which include expansion of the national ICT backbone infrastructure, more landing points for the submarine fibre-optic cables, human resource development and pro-ICT policies.
The project is a bold step taken by the government to connect all regions and districts so that they have access to the 10,000 kilometre national and regional broadband infrastructure as well as sea cables.
This was said by the minister for Communication, Science and Technology, Prof Makame Mbarawa, at the international broadband fibre connectivity meeting between Tanzania and Malawi on Saturday.
The Malawi delegation led by the minister for Information and Civil Education, Mrs Patricia Kaliati, envisioned a link to international connectivity through sub-marine cables.
It is also implementing a $100 million Regional Communication Infrastructure Project (RCIP-TZ) to deliver connectivity to local and central government departments, which upon completion would increase technological network in its systems.
At least $60 million from this project will help deliver an e-Government Network (eGovNet). Several centralised applications and international bandwidth from undersea cables have already landed in the country.
According to the minister, the Universal Communications Access Fund (UCAF) has access to $30 million from RCIP-TZ project resources to deliver services to remote, rural and underserved areas, including shared access to community information centres (CICs) or telecentres and villages to ensure communication for all.
“The government of Tanzania is encouraging partnership and collaboration with more operators from Malawi, which also have a similar project, RCIP-Malawi) said the minister.
Prof Mbarawa explained that Tanzania has experienced a tremendous revolution in the communication sector which led to unprecedented growth in the use of ICTs over the past decade.
According to the minister the change is due to fast changing technologies in the global ICT industry, adding that the biggest has been in the mobile telephony.
He said: “With limited ICT backbone infrastructure mobile telephony has always been a technology of choice to both users and network operators.”
It resulted into a growth of mobile phone users from less than 100,000 users in the late 1990s to 20 million users in December 2010, being about 50 percent teledensity and contributing about 25 percent to the national GDP.
The minister said the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) already connected to two major submarine cables of SEACOM (July, 2009) and EASSY (April, 2010) extends connectivity to the neighbouring countries.
The virtual landing stations of the submarine cables through NICTBB have been established at the respective cross-border points.The Malawian minister who visited SEACOM, Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) and the Tanzania Telecommunication offices praised the country for serious steps taken to improve ICT in the country.
“It is really amazing to see how fast things are moving in Tanzania, and plans to increase connectivity,” she said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Polycarp Machira
Quelle/Source: The Citizen, 19.03.2012
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