CAIRO: Botswana and Zambia's telecom operators have agreed to establish a new fiber-optic cable through Kazungula. Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) and Zamtel in Zambia announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding for the new cable. The new project will cost approximately $260,000 and should take between three and four months to construct and be operational. Zamtel CCO Amon Jere said the project “would help reduce the cost of international connectivity and improve the quality and speed of Internet services.” Early this year, BTC inked a similar $5 million deal with Powertel of Zimbabwe. That deal means BTC provides the Zimbabwe company with bandwidth capacity for two years after the two organizations completed cross-border fiber connections at Ramokgwebana in December 2009. “BTC has already committed to invest BWP 504 million to secure reliable bandwidth from the West African Cable System (WACS),” the Botswana company said in a press release on Tuesday. “BTC has also committed USD 210 million to the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) to further increase Botswana's bandwidth capacity,” it added. The construction of a number of cables across East Africa has boosted telecom and Internet capacity in the region, and investors and operators hope they will push the industry into the next generation of development. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/PYXdk Tags: Botswana, Fiber optic link, Zambia Section: Business, Latest News, Tech
