Rwanda sees bright hope in new fiber-optic ring
Holding promise of providing high-speed internet access for East Africa, a national fiber-optic ring will go online before the end of this year, at the turn of year 2010. The link will have undersea cables connecting Kenya to the internet in less than two months, and go further to provide internet access to Rwanda as well.
For an impoverished and war-besieged country, Rwanda now sees itself an advanced player in development with this recent news of internet access. Despite its being among the poorest nations thriving on agricultural activities, Rwanda deemed it necessary to gain progress with information and communications technology pursuits, along with their plight to have electricity, water and stable livelihood undertakings.
At present, there are very few internet providers mostly found in the capital, Kugali. Heavily reliant on only one satellite for their communications, the few internet service providers charge expensively and at limited speed and availability. This seemingly vastness of poverty extends to lack of skills and education in the field of computers, very low numbers of mobile phone users, and lack of electricity connection. Considering these three are essential to progressing in the field of information and communications technology, Rwanda’s present condition does seem dim and in dire need for connection to the rest of the developed world.
The arrival of East Africa’s fiber-optic cables is seen a step toward changing all these bleak scenario, and further boosts the Rwandan aspiration to make technology be the solid base of their other undertakings, be it economic, health and educational, basic utilities, communications and peace and order in their country.
Despite being dubbed as a too-great-a-leap for his constituents, Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame, considers the fiber-optic ring project to alleviate living conditions of the citizens. Indeed, the news of having high-speed internet opens more opportunities for this country that dreams of being the “Singapore of Africa.”
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Africa surviving on mobile high-speed internet connections
While the rest of the world is experiencing more advanced benefits of high-speed internet, so are African businessmen and individuals – with mobile technology.
The innovations that come with mobile phones are most welcome in Africa as it has become the leading tool in entrepreneurial pursuits, communications and technical solutions for computer programs, software development and even website management.
Such creative and ingenious results are borne out of necessity, with Africans being known to live productively in scarce conditions. This is true as the recent years have witnessed innovative mobile services from the citizens themselves.
Today, we now see these innovations in the “call me” services and the mobile movements of money for purchase of products and payment of services. Both have been proven effective means of communications and holding business, long before other developing countries have employed such methods. Having Vodafone and Safaricom making use of the payment-via-phone scheme came only later after the innovations have been started by the Africans themselves.
But it does not stop there. With or without fiber optics, more advancement on mobile technologies are currently under works from the poorest whiz to the private sector talents. Holding testaments to the smart solutions are showcased at sites like Africagadget. From detectors of water areas abundant with sea bounty to automobile tracking systems all using just a mobile phone, the innovations are varied and have great potential for mainstream market.
The good news is that the academic communities are supporting such creative pursuits with universities seeing East Africa as a future leader in information and communications technology in the continent. Other fuels to this growing potential for Africa are the shipping of more data-enabled mobile phones to Africa and new bandwidth for the new wireless technologies being brought to the region.
For more information on this post, click here: news.bbc.co.uk
