Govt eyes more undersea cables

Pauline Dikuelo | Friday July 11, 2014 11:57

 

Balebetse revealed this during a parliamentary hearing on ICT development on Wednesday after the members of legislators raised concern over the efficiency of the internet.

Members of Parliament complained that the P600 million spent on these undersea cables has not brought value for money.

The Member of Parliament for Shoshong Philip Makgalemele complained that the local Internet is three times slower than most developing countries in Africa.

However Balebetse said there has been improvement in Internet connectivity and prices since the implementation of undersea cables. He said recently prices have been going down while connectivity to homes and offices is improving as well.

“We did our own survey and realised that we are one of the top three cheapest countries in Southern Africa Development Countries (SADC). There is indeed some improvement as it now costs P0.85 to download one mega bite data compared to the P0, 95 we used to pay”.

“These cables lifespan is 25 years but I can tell you that the government is currently looking out for new cables that we will see if we can invest in because we want to turn Botswana into an ICT hub in SADC.”

Further Balebetse assured that National Development Plan (NDP) 11 would address issues of speed, cost and quality regarding broadband as well as implementation of 4G.

He said Botswana is still on the high side on the tariffs, and the network is only limited to the centre of the villages. However they are in the process of finalising the broadband strategy. The WACS and EASSy cables came into operation in 2011 to interconnect Botswana with the rest of the world, connect global points and connect customers and clients to their nearest destination.

The WACS cable which runs from Cape town to London through Western African countries is owned by 12 companies. Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet) on behalf of the Botswana government has invested $37.5 million, which account for four percent shareholding to provide Internet to the country. For the EASSy cable, about $12 million was spent on it and runs from Durban through Djibouti to London.