This follows meetings between Patricia Kaliati, Malawi Minister for Information and Civic Education and her host Prof Makame Mbarawa, Minister for Communication, Science and Technology,
Kaliati also consulted with TCRA management and TTCL management to learn from them Tanzania’s experience in ICT so as to introduce the same in her country. The Malawian minister has been in the country for five days.
“We are here today to see what you have already done, you are really doing a lot, and we are here with the purpose of recognising, getting advice from what you have done and learning from your technical expertise because we are expecting to construct the ICT broadband backbone in Malawi in the near future,” she told The Guardian on Sunday yesterday.
The Malawian minister said the World Bank has given her country funds to connect submarine cables with Tanzania. “Thank you very much for your support and entire government for welcoming us to Tanzania to achieve our mission target on international connectivity to submarine cables,” she said.
According to the minister, Malawi plans to build its own ICT broadband fibre to get best services. She noted that such moves would reduce the cost of internet, saying Tanzania is their first choice and she recognises the high quality of the National ICT Broadband Backbone.
On his part, Prof Makame Mbarawa said the national ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) project is a bold step by the Tanzanian government to connect all regions and districts to access the 10,000 km long national and regional broadband infrastructure as well as the sea cable landing on its shores.
The National ICT broadband Backbone has been built using Optical fibre technology. The technology is not only resilient to bad weather but also possesses better characteristics such as its high bandwidth capacity, compactness, low transmission losses, and high signal security.
Others include immunity to interference and cross-talk, system reliability and ease of maintenance which are among the most important. It is much more efficient and reliable for communication use over satellite-based communications.
Mbarawa said financial resources to implement Phase 1 and Phase 11 of the NICTBB project were Sh30bn from the government’s development budget, $170m being a concessional loan from the Chinese government and $100m generated from NICTBB operations.
Other financial resources valued at $80m are expected from public –private partnership arrangements with the existing service providers in the sector.
The funds are earmarked for rolling out a national duct system and metro networks within major cities and urban centres as well as the fibre-optic links that are not contracted with Phases 1 and Phase 11 of the project.
He said the project implementation was effectively launched on February 1, 2009 and by June, 2010 Phases 1 was completed with a 4,300 km of fibre backbone operational.
Phase 11 became effective from August 1, 2010 and to date. The construction of 3,000 km of fibre backbone and installation of transmission and power equipment is complete awaiting Provisional Acceptance Tests (PAT) planned to commence in April, 2012.
He noted that Tanzania has experienced a revolution in the communication sector which has to unprecedented growth in the use of ICT over the past decade, with mobile telephony registering the biggest growth.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Beatrice Philemon
Quelle/Source: IPPmedia, 18.03.2012
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