Minister explains ICT bottlenecks and solutions

Lerato Maleke | Friday November 15, 2013 16:39

This is due to a number of factors like affordability and high tariffs, ICT illiteracy, lack of local content and sector inefficiencies.Speaking in Parliament this week, the minister said that government is committed to addressing bottlenecks in the sector through policy intervention and converged regulation. He said the government will create an enabling environment for the telecommunications/ICT sector to align with international best practices to position Botswana as a knowledge-based economy driven by innovation, so as to attract foreign investment.

The minister said that Botswana has done very well in infrastructure development and has a relatively good telecommunications network based on fibre and microwave technology. He explained that the core network, which is composed of fibre optic and microwave backhaul links extends to all cities, towns and major villages.

'Of particular note is the resilient national backbone ring system that avails at the minimum, 64 X 10Gbit/sec through a high capacity Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) System,' he stated. He said this is complemented by capacity on the SDH system with a total capacity 10Gb/S. He asserted that the capacity is more than enough for domestic needs in Botswana. In addition, there are high-speed metro rings in major business centres of Gaborone and Francistown 'and spur links to the borders areas' that allow transmission of voice, data and internet.

Molefhi explained that bandwidth gaps have been identified in certain areas at local access level. These will be addressed through the Broadband Strategy developed by the ministry. Molefhi said Botswana has international connectivity through four undersea cables, SAT-3, SEACOM, WACS and EASSy through South Africa and Namibia. He said that previously Botswana was connected through the SAT-3 undersea cable system only and that the investment in SAT-3, EASSy and WACS has been done by government while SEACOM is by the private sector.

Molefhi explained that of the international undersea cables that government has invested, EASSY gives a capacity of 48x155 megabits per second, with the relevant landing point for Botswana being Mtunzni in South Africa. WACS has an initial capacity of 85x155 megabits per second, an equivalent of 170 Gbps, with the landing point for Botswana located in Swakopmund, Namibia, linking to London. Another Botswana company Abaricom, is said to have reserved capacity on the private SEACOM cable landing in South Africa.