Focus on affordable internet
TO ensure that every city in Africa has internet connectivity by 2012 and every village is connected by 2015 the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is forming partnerships with technology companies, operators and donor organisations.
“This is the ITU’s connect Africa project,” says Robert Wuestenenk, senior manager for broadband networks at Ericsson.
He says Ericsson is partnering the ITU to provide basic communication for 20 villages in different countries in sub Saharan Africa, in conjunction with governments and operators.
The ITU is funding low-cost handsets shared by the community and one or two internet- enabled computers for each village. They will have a base station powered by solar and wind power, which is also used to charge the cellphones using a recharge terminal.
The Botswana government has spent $10m to build infrastructure to support mobile connectivity in rural areas. It has split the infrastructure into four regions and allocated it to various operators on a low-cost lease basis, with no capital outlay, based on proposals as to what they would do with it if they won the bid, says Wuestenenk.
“We supported Orange and Mascom, which is partly owned by MTN, with their bids, and both were successful.”
The Rwandan government is committed to building a backbone network infrastructure and selling capacity cheaply to operators.
“If operators can lease the backbone network at a low cost it will be viable for them to provide connectivity services in rural areas.”
Ericsson is partnering Johannesburg to build a fibre network with a hub that can switch data at speeds of 1,2 terabits a second across greater Johannesburg.
Wuestenenk says 35 key municipal offices will be linked to the network initially and the council plans to sell bandwidth capacity to operators and service providers at low cost.
It will allow them to provide more affordable services to informal settlements and townships where telecommunications infrastructure is lacking or is too expensive.
“We see ISPs and service providers connecting to the backbone network by wireless because it would be the quickest way to deliver services.”
Customers will link to their service provider, which will link to the municipal network, which will in turn link to the national and international telecommunication infrastructure through one of the operators.
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