African ICT News

[Kenguy]

Originally Posted by kenndo

HI.GUYS.I NEED SOME HELP. I KNOW CERTAIN AFRICAN COUNTRIES MAKE MORE OF THEIR ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS THAN OTHERS BUT HOW INDEPENDANT THEY ARE?

Kenya makes some computer products under the Starcom brand but I need confirmation on this.

[You are to blame]

Kenya: Undersea Fibre-Optic Cable Touches Mombasa

Nairobi — The long awaited SEACOM fibre-optic cable arrives at Mombasa today.

The arrival of the cable at Mombasa signals the onset of a whole new era in the telecommunications industry, especially the data services in the East African region.

The project cost is estimated at US$ 700m upon completion. Over-reliance on satellite based data solutions is blamed for the high cost of communication in the region.

Local companies that will buy bandwidth from SEACOM have already made groundwork to ensure they start business as soon as the cable becomes operational. These companies will resell the extended bandwidth to users both corporate and individual.

SEACOM senior vice president Jean Pierre de Leu confirmed to journalists in Naivasha that the cable that will provide broadband solutions, will be fully operational by July.

It is expected that telecommunications costs could go down by 60 percent as the cost of bandwidth will crush significantly. High speed data solutions, especially internet are expected with the increased bandwidth.

This will be the first undersea fibre-optic cable to land on Kenyan soil even as many players promise to come up with such cables.

SEACOM is a fully funded private sector project with most of the ownership in the hands of African entrepreneurs.

About 76 percent of the shareholding in the cable is African while the remaining 24 percent is owned by international stakeholders.

Of the African owners, Industrial Promotion Services has 26 percent; Venfin Limited controls 25 percent while Convergence Partners and Shanduka hold a 12.5 percent stake each.

The debt financing for the project is by Nedbank Capital and Investec Bank.

An increased demand for bandwidth catalyzed by the increased use of 3G mobile phone technology and WiMax has seen shortage in supply of internet and the cable is expected to make a major reprieve. Apart from regular use, the cable will enhance music sharing, video streaming and increased 3D internet.

The cable has been laid from the edge of the South African waters to Mozambique and is proceeding in the Red Sea from Egypt towards the coast of Yemen. A third arm of SEACOM's deepwater cable is deployed from India towards Africa, where these three cable segments will be joined.

In parallel to the marine installation, SEACOM has made significant strides in land-based construction. The high-performance optical transmission equipment, which connects customers to inland terrestrial networks, has been installed at the Maputo, Mumbai and Djibouti cable landing stations.

Construction of the cable station in Kenya is already complete. Similar stations have been erected in Tanzania and South Africa. Equipment installation in these locations and in Egypt, will be complete in April. At each site, SEACOM has taken special precautions to ensure the construction activity is consistent with environmental policy and regulations. As an example, in South Africa, SEACOM recently transferred protected plant species from the cable station site to the Umlalazi National Park with the help of the KwaZulu Natal Wildlife rangers.

SEACOM has also been preparing to provide services to customers by June and recruited over ten experienced local telecommunications professionals from India, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania to operate and maintain the cable stations. Many of these personnel have already been trained at the SEACOM Network Operations Centre in India and are now participating in the testing of the system. A complementary set of personnel is being recruited and will start training in March. These teams will also work with the landing partners' operators in Egypt and Djibouti.

Plentiful and readily available bandwidth will result in lower telecommunications costs and new opportunities across many sectors that will include the call centre and business process outsourcing industries. Other life-enhancing disciplines such as educational, clinical and scientific research which rely on the real-time sharing of data around the world will also become a reality for many Africans organizations.

The cable will promote competition in the ICT sector while at the same time encouraging research and development.

In South Africa, SEACOM will reduce international bandwidth for universities and research institutions by a whopping 5,000%. Wow!

[Kwame]

Rwanda: Government in $100m ICT investment drive

Saturday, 7th March 2009

KIGALI - Government is expected to invest above $100 million in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry by end of this year according to the Minister of Science and Technology Prof. Romain Murenzi.

The big investment priorities include the laying of a fibre optic loop across the country which will take $66m and the purchase of 100,000 laptops estimated to cost $20 million.

About $13m that will be pooled from the $24m communication grant from World Bank will be allocated to connect local fibre to international bandwidth. The commitment from the government is driven by its vision to have a knowledge based economy by 2020.

This was mentioned during the recently ended International Conference on the Development of Equitable Information Society and the role of African Parliaments that took place from 4th to 5th March 2009.

According to Prof. Murenzi the funds are drawn from licence costs of telecommunication companies and allocations from the national budget.

The first phase of laying the cable was in Kigali and the second phase will cover all 30 districts in the country, which are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

It’s envisaged that when national backbone is connected across the country the prices for Internet provision and acquisition will fall, thus helping Rwanda in its transformation into knowledge based economy.

Patrick Nyirishema Deputy Executive Director of Rwanda Information Technology Authority (RITA) highlighted the National Information Communication agenda and noted that currently in Rwanda, access to ICT facilities is not a privilege rather a right to every Rwandan.

RITA has since recently joined the Rwanda Development Board.

New Times

[Kwame]

Kenya: TEAMS Alarmed By Arrival of Seacom

Cedric Lumiti

15 March 2009

Nairobi — With the arrival of a private undersea cable on the East African coast, the Kenyan government has moved to reassure stakeholders that The East Africa Marine Systems Cable (TEAMS) is still on course.

After months of a lull and seemingly no activity in the laying of the government fronted cable, news that the privately owned SEACOM cable had landed at the coastal town of Mombasa appear to have sent jitters in government circles prompting the reassurance.

Government last Tuesday issued an assurance that installation of The East African Marine System (TEAMS) fibre-optic cable by June was still on course.

The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Information and Communications Dr. Bitange Ndemo said the project's technical and financial aspects were still intact. He however expressed fears the cable laying costs could shoot up with the increasing piracy threat along the coast.

Ndemo spoke during a signing ceremony with shareholders in Nairobi in efforts to privatise the cable so as to expedite its completion. The ceremony also saw the signing of a loan agreement for the same.

He said the Kenyan government had already submitted their funds for the cable just as Kenyan based mobile phone service provider Safaricom which holds a 20 percent stake in the cable also submitted their funds.

Most other firms that had applied for a stake in the project are yet to honour their financing obligations and the government called upon them to move with speed.

"The government has already paid Shs1.6 billion for its portion of shares. All shareholders will contribute a total of Shs10.4 billion," Ndemo said.

Ndemo said the TEAMS cable was expected on the East African coast by mid June given that the laying process will begin March 24.

The public-private partnership is 20 percent owned by the government of Kenya, Safaricom and Telkom Kenya take a 20 percent stake each, while Kenya Data Networks and Econet Wireless Kenya own 10 percent each.

Ndemo denied reports that the SEACOM cable had already landed at the Kenyan coast claiming all that was happening was preparing the ground for the expected landing. He audaciously said this had actually popped up from the Indian Ocean.

His denial was by and large taken as a face saving exercise since he is on record as having sworn that TEAMS would be the first undersea cable on the East African coast.

"Nobody should cheat you that any cable has landed on the coast; all that is happening at the shoreline is preparation for the laying of the cable because the ships cannot get there, they can only get to a particular distance," Ndemo claimed.

He allayed fears that three cables landing in the country would provide more capacity than the country could handle.

"We have capacity for up to 10 cables because our intention is to make this country a regional communication hub," he said.

Meanwhile the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Finance Joseph Kinyua has said the Attorney General has given all the necessary approval for the project.

"All the sub-systems have been fully manufactured and assembled. In effect, TEAMS is now a fully fledged company," Kinyua said.

Kinyua said the project would stimulate growth in terms of investment in the special economic zones to the tune of $10 billion in the next three years.

East African Business Week

[Kwame]

Nvm.

[Xusein]

LOL, why can't they have both? Is having two underwater fiber-optic cables in an area that originally had none such a bad thing?

This must be another public-private squabble or something.

[Lydon]

Bunch of fools...the more bandwidth the better. Really now, demand will only increase over time o_O

[Kwame]

Burundi: Country Gets New Telecom Operator

Walter Isenged

30 March 2009

Bujumbura — The wireless mobile telephony competition has heated up in Burundi after the entry of another operator into the market.

Econet Wireless, a South Africa based telecommunications operator has for the past year been setting up office, recruiting workers, installing masts and doing preliminary testing. Econet Wireless is now connecting clients in what it calls a one-month 'network testing.'

The public has received this new development with enthusiasm and excitement. For quite a while, potential clients were bombarding Econet offices on Avenue Uprona in the center of Bujumbura with requests as a result of the sometimes erratic connectivity of the existing service providers. "Will I get the same number as my previous one on the other network?" was the question one enthusiastic prospective client asked an Econet official.

In a press release, the Managing Director Econet Burundi, Darlington Mandivenga said:

"During these 30 days, customers will be connected to test the voice quality and coverage of the network as the technical team fine tunes everything," he said.

"We are humbled by the support we have received from the people of Burundi and right now we have hundreds of thousands on our waiting list," he added.

Currently, Telecel is the biggest player in the market using the trade name Ucom, with about 295,000 subscribers. The second largest is the state-run Onamob, part of the ONATEL network which has 79,000 subscribers. It is followed by Africell, which recently rebranded to the name TEMPO with 23,000 subscribers.

Yanick Mugisha, the Brand Manager Econet told East African Business Week the plan was to have over 100,000 subscribers in the first month.

Asked how he planned to do this, he said: "Econet is coming onto the market not to play price war games, but to provide first-class quality service."

Already, many clients say they are disenfranchised and are willing to hand in their simcards from other operators in exchange for the much awaited Econet mobile network.

The clincher for Econet might actually be the SMS compatibility agreement it has signed with the other operators. It has been impossible to do SMS communication from one mobile operator to the other. The network testing will avail the network in about 16 provinces where Econet has installed base stations. Econet hopes to cover 94% of the country by the time it launches its network in a month's time.

Other mobile operators have reacted to this entry with Ucom sending an SMS that East African Business Week received to the effect that they have slashed international call rates by over 50%.

One can now call Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania for only Bif400 (US$0.32) during the day and Bif367 ($0.29) after 6:00pm. This will be easily the cheapest call rate in the region. However, this promotion is slated to end on April 20, 2009.

Yannick Mugisha said the delay to launch Econet's mobile services has mainly been due to the extensive testing and installations which have necessitated a great deal of care.

East African Business Week

[Kwame]

Rwanda: High Expectations for Broadband

Gertrude Majyambere

30 March 2009

Kigali — Costs of Internet broadband in the country are expected to reduce from $3,000 to $25 for each Megabyte per second

Information Communication and Technology (ICT) can dramatically improve the quality and availability of public services, World Bank Country Manager Victoria Kwakwa said recently.

In her remarks Kwakwa, highlighted that nearly two-thirds of Africa's population now lives within the range of a mobile network from close to zero.

This was during last week's three-day '3rd annual African e-governance Forum 2009' that took place in Kigali from the 23rd to the 26th of March.

"Broadband is the key to the future of ICT in Africa," Kwakwa said. It's said that broadband in Africa is expensive and inaccessible, not available on a large scale anywhere in Africa.

This year the government of Rwanda committed to invest above $100 million in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry.

The big investment priorities include laying a national broadband backbone connecting to the coastal submarine cables expected to be completed by 2010.

Laying of the national backbone across the country will pave away for rural telecommunication development and increase the rate of telecommunication penetration in the country and bridge the telecommunication gap.

Two of the submarine cables being targeted include the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy) and The East African Marine System (TEAMS). Costs of Internet broadband in the country are expected to reduce from $3,000 to $25 for each Mega byte per second.

Currently charges for bandwidth of 512 kilo bytes per second (512kbps/ 128kbps) costs Frw950,000 per month on wireless while on fiber connection its Frw360,000 for 256 Kilo bytes per second (256kbps/96kbps) per month.

Once the cables are complete, access to international bandwidth connected to Rwanda will increase more than three times and the price will fall by over 50 percent.

According to Diogene Mudenge, the Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Agency (RURA) boss, the current Internet penetration is 5 percent from licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs), MTN, Rwandatel and Artel which is a communications company that belongs to government.

The government is targeting 60 percent penetration by 2012. Currently, mobile phone subscribers in Rwanda are 1.5 million with 1.25 million subscribing with MTN.

About 250,000 subscribe with Rwandatel. The country is targeting 5 million subscribers by 2012.

The projection is based on the growth in mobile phone penetration with a 3rd mobile national operator expected to open office by the end of this year. With the help of New Artel, above 120 Megabytes per second (Mbps) of Internet connection have been provided to rural areas.

The move will help institutions in rural areas to be connected to their main branches for enhancements of services and thus meeting the customer's satisfaction.

Artel is currently equipped to deliver wholesale Internet access and Very Small Aperture Terminal's (VSAT) solutions across the country. It is also the largest supplier of Internet access in the country and the only licensed satellite operator.

VSAT are means of providing data and voice connectivity for remote localities. During the e-Gov forum, participants wanted to know how their respective countries can benefit from the World Bank to fund ICT projects, whereby the country manager believed that the Bank is dictated by national priorities.

Kwakwa hailed the government of Rwanda for having identified ICT as a crosscutting issue in the achievement of the MDG's set to be achieved by 2015.

The New Times

[Lydon]

Telkom expected to invest about R40 billion in the next five years to upgrade its network in South Africa


Telkom expected to invest about R40 billion in the next five years to upgrade its network in South Africa as part of its survival strategy in an increasingly competitive environment, the fixed-line operator said yesterday.

The money would be used to upgrade its existing fixed-line network, expand its data centre operations and build a wireless network.

It had initially planned capital spending of R55 billion, but this was expected to be reduced to about R40 billion, including R10 billion from the proceeds of the Vodacom stake disposal.

Like many firms, Telkom is harmed by the economic downturn, with revenue remaining flat while costs rise.

The company is reinventing itself after selling its stake in Vodacom, which was its biggest contributor to profit.

It separated its business into three units - Telkom South Africa, to be headed by former Telkom executive Pinky Moholi; Telkom International; and Telkom Data Centre, which became operational yesterday.

Reuben September, the chief executive of the Telkom group, said: "Refocusing Telkom represents a positive, purposeful change towards a more accountable and competitive company. This change is a necessary part of Telkom's strategy to maintain and grow its market share in South Africa, while building a strong footprint on the continent."

He added that the process would take two years.

One of the major concerns for Telkom is to bring down costs. Peter Nelson, the chief financial officer, said Telkom was spending millions of rands in information technology and maintenance, and the group would look at ways to reduce these costs.

It would freeze recruitment and there would be no salary increase for executives.

Although Telkom has set its sights on becoming a strong player in Africa, its Nigerian unit, Multi-Links, which it bought in 2006, is facing tough competition in that country.

Nelson said Telkom had underestimated competition.

However, he expects the business to be profitable in the next two years. Multi-Links now has 1.7 million customers, compared with 262 431 in 2007.

The unit operates a fixed-wireless network and offers voice, internet and data services. Nigeria is one of the world's fastest-growing telecoms markets, with a penetration rate of about 30 percent.

Jan Meintjies, an analyst at Gryphon Asset Management, said Telkom's management structure was disappointing, as a lot of haphazard decisions had been taken previously, such as investment in Telkom Media.

"You need to get structures right to manage efficiency," said Meintjies. "It is disappointing that Nigeria was performing badly, because management indicated that it believed it had the right strategy to be competitive."

September said the firm expected growth in both its fixed and mobile services in South Africa.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Business/7568.html

Telkom's R 40bn network investment - give your views

Business Report

[Kwame]

Rwanda: Broadband to Become Eassy

Sam Ruburika

2 April 2009

Kigali -- WIOCC is an African company set up as a vehicle for investment in the EASSy submarine cable. It is jointly funded by 12 African telecom operators and a number of global development financial institutions such as the World Bank.

For a country that has prioritized ICT as a tool to enhance development, there is a sigh of relief as the submarine cable will give Rwanda a cheaper broadband provider compared with broadband from satellite which is costly.

For instance, one Mbps (megabyte per second) of the satellite broadband costs Rwanda US$ 1900 a month. This results in a relatively high cost of internet services to the end users, with cyber cafés charging around Frw 600 per hour. Once EASSy is operational, the cost will reduce significantly to about US$ 500 per month for one Mbps.

"Our aim is to reduce the costs of bandwidth to the end user," says Christopher Wood, the CEO of WIOCC. He also points out that lower prices will enhance competition.

The 10,000 kilometer submarine cable system will connect about 20 East and Southern African countries, running across the East coast from South Africa to Sudan.

Despite the significant reduction in broadband costs, Rwanda will still face a higher charge due to it being far away from the sea coast. However, the optic fiber cables currently being laid by local telecommunications companies could lead to a further reduction in costs. The fiber backbone will be connected to Uganda's national backbone and up to the Kenyan coast at Mombasa.

"All telecom companies in East Africa are putting in place fiber optic which will be joined to access the submarine cable. Once this is complete the cost of bandwidth at the coast will be the same as Kigali which would be about US$100 per megabyte," Wood remarks, while warning that if the fiber connection from Kigali to the coast in not complete, broadband would not be significantly cheaper in Rwanda.

He points out that the EASSy network is fully scalable and can offer bandwidth options between 2Mbps up to 10Gbps with flexible contract terms from one month to about 25 years, which is typically the lifetime of the cable system itself.

Buying more bandwidth

Romain Murenzi, the Minister in the President's Office in charge of science & technology, remarks that once Rwanda has been connected to EASSy, it would acquire enough broadband to compete on the regional level and beyond. "Each year we pay more than six million dollars for internet, and with the reduction in costs we can purchase more bandwidth," Murenzi says.

He emphasizes Rwanda's efforts in laying the ICT infrastructure such as the 2300 kilometer national fiber optic backbone, which will fully come into use once the submarine cable was in place. "But we will need to progressively acquire the skills to maintain and run the application once it is in place," the Minister notes.

Meanwhile Rwanda's achievements in ICT have been hailed by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO) of which Rwanda became a member two years ago.

According Samuel Fletcher, CTO's corporate communications and international events manager, Rwanda has in recent years distinguished itself in the ICT sector as being a leader in proactive ICT policy making, regulation, mobile and internet broadband growth as well as the recent expansion in connectivity to the remote areas of the nation. These achievements have convinced the council of CTO to organize the third African e-governance forum in Rwanda.

Focus Media

[Kwame]

West Africa: Togo Telecom sign African undersea cable deal

9 April 2009

Lome -- A consortium of telecoms operators have signed a deal that would pave the way for the laying of South Africa's undersea cable around West Africa to Europe, local telecoms firm Telkom (TKGJ.J) said on Wednesday.

The $600 million West Africa Cable System would boost broadband capacity and could cut comparatively high Internet tariffs in Africa's biggest economy.

The 14,000 km long cable system, which is expected to move data at 3.8 terabits a second, would be supplied by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks and was expected to be completed by 2011, Telkom said in a statement.

Telecommunications companies that have signed the WACS Construction and Maintenance Agreement include Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN Group (MTNJ.J), Portugal Telecom (PTC.LS), Sotelco, Tata Communications (TATA.BO), Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.

SEACOM, a Mauritius-registered private equity venture, has said it plans to launch a 15,000 km undersea cable that links east Africa to Europe and Asia in June this year. (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Andrew Macdonald)

All Africa

[Matthias Offodile]

Gabon : Port-Gentil fête l’Internet

A l’occasion de la fête de l’Internet dans le monde, l’agence Icom Gabon organise du 14 au 17 avril dans la capitale économique gabonaise des activités de sensibilisation, d’information et de formation aux nouvelles technologies sous le thème «le numérique pour tous». La première édition de cet événement vise à initier les populations locales à l’outil informatique et soutenir la création de clubs internet dans les établissements d’enseignement secondaires de Port-Gentil pour aider les jeunes à tirer profit des nouveaux outils d’information et de communication.



Port-Gentil célèbre cette année la fête de l’Internet à travers des activités de sensibilisation, d’information et de formation qui sont organisées du 14 au 17 avril prochain par l’agence Icom Gabon.

Placé sous le thème du «numérique pour tous», cet événement est destiné à sensibiliser et informer la société civile sur les enjeux et usages de l'outil Internet. Cette initiative se veut un moment de partage autour des nouvelles potentialités qu’ouvrent les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication.

A cette occasion, l’agence Icom Gabon permettra aux jeunes de la capitale économique gabonaise de participer au fonctionnement du site http://www.icomgabon.com afin de se familiariser avec l’entretien d’un site internet dans sa gestion technique et éditoriale.

«Le Numérique pour tous est donc une rencontre unique dans l’année pour réfléchir, sensibiliser, accompagner les uns et les autres dans l’utilisation des nouvelles technologies et de l’information qui révolutionnent l’existence de chacun depuis quelques années», déclarent les organisateurs de l’événement.

Durant quatre jours, l’agence Icom Gabon sensibilisera les jeunes à la création de clubs internet dans les établissements secondaires de Port-Gentil et proposera des initiations gratuites à l’outil informatique aux membres de ces clubs internet.

Les activités se dérouleront dans les lieux de forte fréquentation de Port-Gentil et seront retransmises en direct sur www.icomgabon.com dans le cadre des démonstrations des nouvelles potentialités qu’offre l’outil Internet.

Icom Gabon est une micro agence de communication qui offre des services dans les domaines de la publicité, l’événementiel, la création de site web, la production, etc.
Publié le 16-04-2009

[abesha]

Telecom Challenges Shadow “Next Generation Network"

Sidewalks in most parts of Addis Abeba have, in the past couple of months, turned into digging sites as the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) has been carrying out cable installations.


Theses installations are parts of the state telecom monopoly's nationwide work on multimedia transfer projects, including in rural villages and some of the remotest parts of the country using VSAT (very small aperture terminal), a satellite communications technology.


The project, which comes about at a time when there are a series of complaints about the quality of the services ETC provides, is on the list of the 1.5 billion dollars worth mega expansion projects the telecom has been undertaking for more than a year now; the new fibre optics is being installed by ZTE, a Chinese telecom company that has been awarded the mega vender financing project. It is to replace the current copper cable.


Dubbed Next Generation Network (NGN), the project will go on for the next two years, according to officials at ETC.

The fibre optics under installation will handle a package of telecom services: Broadband Internet and landline telephones; Global System for Mobile (GSM) and Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA); Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and fixed Next Generation Network (Fixed NGN).


With finalization of the project, the monopoly hopes to provide modern telecom services with much higher data transfer speeds to mobile and portable wireless devices that commonly include network cable supporting voice, data, and video connections.


CDMA technology is one of the wireless standards that is currently in the process of transition from second-generation (2G) to third generation (3G) wireless technology services. It is the standard that delivers the first of three 3G modes. It delivers raw data rates of up to 153 kilobits per second. CDMA includes 1xEV-DO (Evaluation Data Optimization), a new high speed transmission technique for data centric broadband network; it is portable, a flash disk size and can be plugged on any computer to bring up effective and speedy connection.


While ETC staff are busy with the fibre optics cable installation project, problems around mobile phone network complexity, including poor connection and signal of the 3G services seem to have been ignored. Subscribers of these services, particularly of the 3G mobile, have been fiercely complaining about the poor quality of the services, sources at the ETC told, Fortune.



"It has been more than six months since I started facing problems with the 3G mobile," Surafel Setotaw, subscriber of 3G technology, told Fortune.



Although the complaints from subscribers continue, authorities at ETC say that the problem would soon be solved.


"The reason why ETC has come up with NGN is to solve the slow connectivity problems," Anteneh Begashaw, supervisor of Corporate Technical Assistance Department at ETC, said.


The current Micro Wave based connectivity is indolent; but that does not mean the whole system of micro wave is to be left out, Anteneh explained.


After a century of telecom service in the country, the state telecom monopoly was restructured in 1996 and became Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), following which it launched satellite mobile services and a prepaid mobile system in 2003.



Recently, however, ETC seems embroiled in challenges. There are reports that it could not deliver on the landline customers' request. Especially those who want the service en masse, such as new buildings, who have had to wait for months to get just part of the number of lines they requested.

"We have not got the fixed lines we requested to furnish our building," the owner of a newly constructed 10-storey commercial centre told Fortune.


They had requested 500 land lines and were only given 70, the owner added.


"We were told that they [ETC] will give us additional lines in the near future."



Those who could not get any lines claim that they have been forced to provide their tenants with mobile phones.


ETC officials, nevertheless, deny that there is a shortage of land lines.


"We never have land line shortages," Abdurahim Ahmed, Corporate Communications general manager at ETC said. "We have plenty of wireless lines through which customers can access Internet connection and fax lines."


For Abdurahim, the compliant could have been relatively reasonable if it had come from customers out of the capital.http://addisfortune.com/Telecom%20Ch...%20Network.htm

They need to release their death grip on telecom!!

[You are to blame]

image hosted on flickr

[Gulivar]

Impressive.

[Xusein]

Maybe when Somalia calms down, they could put a connection through Seacom and TEAMs as well.

Either way, I am loving the massive change that the east coast is going from no lines to several.

[Kenguy]

Goodbye to snail-email in East Africa. I hope it will be cheaper too.

[You are to blame]

I should add the completion date for the map above

Name............Condition-Year Finished
SAT3/SAFE.....Finished - 2001
GLO-1............Finished - 2009
TEAMs..........Construction - 2009 - Q2
Seacom.........Construction - 2009 - Q2
EASSy..........Construction - 2010 - Q2
MaIn OnE.......Pre-Construction - 2010 - Q2
ACE..............Proposal - 2011
WACS...........Proposal - 2011

[Kwame]

Angola: Angola Telecom to Invest US$1.2 billion in Country’s Fixed-Line Network

Lisbon, Portugal, 23 April – Angola Telecom plans to invest US$1.2 billion in its fixed line network and give priority to interlinking the country with fibre optics, the company’s chief executive said in Lisbon Wednesday.

Speaking to Portuguese news agency Lusa on the sidelines of the World Telecommunicatiosn Forum, which is taking place in Lisbon until Friday, João Avelino Manuel noted that the investment would be made in interlinking Angola’s 18 provinces with fibre optic cables, New Generation Networks and local wireless networks.

"We are interlinking the entire country, the 18 provinces, and working on a national basis. The priority is to interlink the whole country in order to distribute large amounts of traffic, not only from Angola Telecom, as the incumbent operators, but also to make it possible for other operators to have transmission available, such as mobiles, which is very difficult at the moment,” he said.

Manuel noted that the investment would make it possible for mobile operators “to expand more quickly and be able to cover national roads and municipalities, via their capacities from the fibre optic cable network.”

AngolaPress