Telecom Namibia plans to invest 155 mln USD to modernize national network

WINDHOEK, July 19  — Telecom Namibia, a national telecommunication operator, plans to invest over 155 million U.S. dollars in the next five plus years to modernize the country’s national network, an executive said Monday.
This will include both fixed and mobile, starting with the national backbone to the core network, Telecom Namibia’s CEO Stanley Shanapinda said Monday.
A World Bank report released on July 8 noted that Namibia’s costs for internet data services are high, at an average cost of 8.30 U.S. dollars; mobile data adoption is at 36 percent, behind regional peers who stand at 52 percent adoption; fibre rollout and uptake is slow, with 2.5 subscriptions per 100 people; digital adoption rates are much lower than in peer countries, and the challenge for private businesses to access stable and reliable electricity.
“The first investment of about 5 million U. S. dollars that we realized is the co-landing of the Google Equiano submarine cable, in partnership with the private company Paratus, also allowing for the sharing of infrastructure,” said Shanapinda.
The Equiano cable landed in Namibia on July 1 and will provide Namibia with the projected capacity of 4 Tbps (4,000 Gbps), he said.
“This is the second submarine cable we landed, the first one being the West Africa Cable System that landed in February 2011,” he said, adding that these cables address international connectivity needs and gear Namibia towards the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).
According to Shanapinda, the next part of Telecom’s capital expenditure (CapEx) is to accelerate the rollout of fibre to pass and connect thousands of homes, thereby improving the coverage of the existing 10,676 km national fibre backbone.
Shanapinda meanwhile said to improve mobile data adoption rates, via their subsidiary Powercom, in 2021/22, it deployed new and upgraded 3G and 4G mobile sites in rural and urban areas.
“Under our mobile CapEx, we plan to rapidly increase our current population coverage, and quality of service, from rural areas to national roads. We are excited that under the national 5G strategy recently announced by the country’s communications regulator, our sites will be 5G-ready, using the latest standards, to enable real-time cargo monitoring with ubiquitous IoT connectivity,” he said.
However, Shanapinda said in the digital transformation efforts, they continue to face challenges with access to stable and reliable electricity.
“Our Beyond 2023 strategy comes at the right time, to enable Namibia to reach its digital economy growth needs,” he concluded.  (Xinhua)