Botswana launches fibre home internet connectivity
Gaborone, Botswana (PANA) - Botswana's wholesale provider of national and international telecommunication infrastructure, BoFiNet has launched the Fibre to the Home (FTTH) technology to improve the information, communications and technology sector in the southern Africa country.
Core to BoFiNet’s mandate is to provide and operate a world class telecommunications backbone network infrastructure which will drive connectivity and economic growth.
Speaking at the FTTH technology launch in Gaborone on Monday, Transport and Communications minister Dorcas Kobela Makgato said in 2007, parliament approved the National ICT policy which proposed forwarding-looking objectives which would guide, coordinate and integrate ICT initiatives in order to turn the country into a globally competitive knowledge and information society through effective use of ICT.
“This policy further seeks to develop a culture of lifelong learning, create enabling environment for the ICT industry, and to make Botswana a regional ICT Hub. I must acknowledge the delays we have encountered, but can assure you that we will make a great comeback and catch-up, especially that immediately after elections we will be having a dedicated Ministry focusing on ICTs,” she said.
BofiNet has to date connected 4,410 businesses and government offices across Botswana with broadband fibre. In Gaborone there are already 2,741 businesses connected through the FTTx technology.
This number is set to double in Gaborone before the end October 2019 with an additional 2,317, connections to make a total of 5,058 government and business premises in Gaborone fully connected.
Among localities that benefited from these initiatives were the cities of Gaborone and Francistown, the villages of Maun, Kasane, Selibe Phikwe, Bobonong, Palapye, Serowe, Mogoditshane, Lobatse and Tsabong.
The first phaseof the project is due for completion in November 2019. It will be followed by Gaborone Phase II which will rollout FTTH to about 16,000 unserviced medium and high-cost residential plots that should be concluded by December 2020.
Makgato said it is in pursuit of these noble objectives that her ministry has gone further to cascade this policy into strategies such as the Rural Telecommunications Strategy, the National Broadband Strategy, International Connectivity and National Backbone.
“The intention is also to issue tenders for FTTB and FTTH for the diamond mining towns of Jwaneng and Orapa in this current financial year and deliver the connections during the 2020/2021 financial year. The project will bring in transformation in the way we communicate and the internet speed at home will be greatly enhanced and improved,” Makgato said.
According to the minister, these new developments not only bring new opportunities such as employment creation but will also bring opportunities that are here to stay once the project is complete.
“To the end users, the development will usher in a new era where we, as a nation are able to complete educational degrees and diplomas or even doctorates online from the comfort of our homes. This new era also offers the opportunity to us as a nation to start looking at creating businesses with global reach for us to be globally competitive,” said Makgato.
FTTH is a technology for the whole family, big or small; everyone in a household will be guaranteed great internet speeds without compromised quality.
“The rationale behind the formation of BoFiNet was for us as Government to take a step further in creating an enabling environment in the ICT space, enable more competition and hopefully to achieve some efficiencies in the process,” she said.
Makgato urged BoFiNet to improve the country’s ICT infrastructure and its wholesale products. This would enable the retail segment of the market to provide cost effective innovative services and products enabling broadband penetration.
-0- PANA MS/AR 15Oct2019
