East Africa invests a combined US$400m in fibre

Five East African countries will have invested a combined US$400 million in terrestrial fibre optic cables when work is completed on national fibre optic backbones that each is at different stages of building.
When complete, this vast network will carry Internet connectivity from the border with South Sudan in the north to Tanzania’s border with Zambia and Malawi in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west.
The terrestrial link, which is dubbed the East Africa Backhaul System, will then link into the submarine fibre optic cables on the East Africa coast.
This fibre, which covers more than 15,600 kilometres, links the five countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, will create the largest inter-linked region on the continent.
In January, Rwanda completed work on her 2,300km cable at a cost of $60 million. Korea Telecom (KT) undertook the fibre-laying work.
The cable covers the capital Kigali, links to the country’s main border posts with Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and DR Congo.
It also covers all the four provinces, links into the main Police headquarters, universities and other remote government and administrative offices.
Tanzania is continuing with work to lay its more than 10,000 kilometre cable, costing some $170 million. Professor John S. Nkoma, the Director General of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said linking the cable to the main borders with Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi is almost done.
Nkoma was speaking in the Rwandan capital during the 18th Congress of the East Africa Communications Organisation (EACO) – an umbrella body for the telecoms regulators in the region.
Nkoma said private operators in Tanzania have got to pick up the cable to reach those areas that will not have been reached by the national backbone cable.
Phase one of the project covers 7,000 kilometres and the second phase will cover 3,000 kilometres. Like all the others, Nkoma said the Tanzania facility will be deployed by government to promote e-governance, e-health, e-commerce and e- learning.
Burundi is currently laying a 1,300 kilometre cable at a cost of $10.5 million, a grant from the World Bank.
The cable will cover key entry points—two on the Rwandan border and one on the Tanzanian side. The cable will also cover the capital Bujumbura and all the 17 provinces. ZTE of China has been awarded the tender to lay the cable.
Salvator Niyibizi from Burundi’s Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications told the Congress that the first phase is expected to be ready early next year.
The cable is expected to reduce the cost of internet access by more than 70 percent. Today, internet users in Burundi pay the highest for connectivity with operators parting with $3000 megabytes per second per month for bandwidth via satellite.
In Uganda, the government acquired a Chinese loan of about $102 million to lay the 2,100 kilometres plus cable, which has been embroiled in a corruption scandal and is more than 18 months behind schedule.
Patrick Mwesigwa, the acting head of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) told the Congress that is implementing the backbone project in three phases with the first phase already done.
Work on phase two, which link the south of the country to the north is due for completion at the end of this year.
Phase three, which will connect the cable with Rwanda, is expected to begin in the course of the second half of the year.
“By mid-next year, the national backbone should be completed,” Mwesigwa said. He noted that the Ugandan cable has two components—one has linked all government offices and another with spare capacity for the private operators to lease.
The Kenya government is also investing $60 million in a fibre cable of its own. The National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) is being implemented by Chinese firms Huawei, ZTE and a third firm, Sagem.
Unlike the other countries of East Africa, Kenya’s private sector has laid a lot of the fibre optics. Some 5,000 kilometres of fibre had been laid by the private players by June 2010.
The five partner states plan to link their cables in one network to lower the cost of communication by increasing the speed and capacity of internet connectivity.
Telecommunications regulators from these partner states are also pushing for a regional internet exchange point to keep traffic within the region local.