When complete, a national backbone will enable Rwandans to use e-applications and for the government to execute e-services and business and information exchange that need high speed broadband Internet.
The contract obliges KT to provide technology, equipment and relevant application materials to the government of Rwanda.
KT will also offer training and manage the installation process of the entire network cables.
It will also install a Wibro wireless network that will be accessed by 10,000 people in Kigali, the capital.
The contract establishes that the government of Rwanda, through its agency, the Rwanda Information Communications Technology Authority (RITA), will be responsible for the entire project management ranging from civil works.
It will also enable connectivity once the required infrastructure is entirely set up by KT.
Dubbed Service Support Contract, the lucrative deal was signed in Kigali last week by the executive director of Rwanda Information Communication Technology Authority (RITA), Mr. Nkubito Bakuramutsa and Korea Telecom's Executive Director for Overseas Business, Dr. Kim Hansuk.
The politically driven national backbone project, which is under RITA, it is expected will enable Rwandans easily use data, voice and video applications.
This will reduce international connectivity expenditures and hence bring down the cost of doing business in Rwanda.
Out of a population of ten million people, less than ten thousand Rwandans have access to the internet and a national backbone should dramatically change this.
With the new infrastructure in place, officials expect two to four million Rwandans to gain access to the Internet in the next two to three years.
The national backbone is expected to consist of a high-speed fiber-optic network that will link 36 main nodes in both Kigali city and all 30 districts that make up Rwanda.
The cable is expected to run 2,300 kilometers around the entire country.
The officials say that between December this year and January next year, Kigali will be fully connected on the fiber-optic cable. The rest of connectivity work is scheduled to end with 2009, covering the entire country.
The national backbone is additional communications infrastructure considering that private players MTN Rwanda and Rwandatel have infrastructure coverage in those areas that make business sense.
The executive director for RITA, Nkubito Bakuramutsa said the facility will be managed by a public private partnership (PPP) company that will be set up once the network is completed.
The network will connect public institutions like universities, schools, hospitals, border and customs services, immigration services and police stations in the entire country.
The agreement on the national backbone comes on the heels of $24 million credit for the Regional Communication Infrastructure Program for Rwanda.
The financing is part of the World Bank's $424 million Regional Communication Infrastructure Program which is designed to improve the regional communications infrastructure and increase the deployment of e-government in Southern and Eastern Africa.
The program also complements the submarine fiber optic cable projects being developed along the East coast of Africa, which will link the region onto the global communications network.
The project will increase the availability of broadband to over 700 Rwandan institutions including schools, health centers and local government administrative centers. This will increase the volume of international bandwidth connected to Rwanda more than three times and the price will fall by over 50%.
The RCIP Rwanda will also promote investment and competition among local licensed operators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who will be selected to implement project activities through a competitive bidding process.
By setting the entire infrastructure, Rwanda anticipates to achieve its vision of becoming an ICT hub in the region. The private sector, however, has raised the concerns about how the national cable and their own cables will be linked. The players question the idea of doing a backbone saying it brings competition to their private investments while the government says that it has the right to connect its people and it is actually laying the foundation for the private sector to operate by carrying out the initial investments.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Bosco Hitimana
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 07.10.2008
