Harare just put out the call for internet service companies to bring new ideas, to work together in building the most well connected World Class City come 2025.
The goal is significant expansion of already robust fiber optic networks to more corners of the city, and additional services for some underserved people. Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni has branded this Harare’s Broadband Challenge. Despite the Internet’s ever-growing social and economic relevance, a sizable number of Zimbabweans still aren’t connected.
ZOL Zimbabwe CEO, Mr Denny Marandure highlighted at ZOL Fibroniks cocktail yesterday that one of the barriers for expanding to into other cities was infrastructure cost and the approvals from local and regularly authorities. He added that there is need to work together and that’s way the Mayor of Harare MrBernard Manyenyeni was the guest of honor at the cocktail. ZOL Zimbabwe is now in most parts of Harare and has expanded into Bulawayo and in the coming months will be in Mutare and hopefully in Kwekwe.
According to Potraz 2015 first quarter report , 44.3 % was the country’s internet penetration rate .Basic Internet adoption rates only tell part of the story. Many connected homes remain saddled with slow speeds that limit the Internet’s usefulness, but with the launch of Fibroniks lite has tried to address the issue by having both downlink and uplink as the same at 5Mbps.
“We live in a global village where the internet has permeated into our lives and our everyday routines.” Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni.
“In a previous job in the 90’s I was shouted at by my boss for proposing to have email in the company. Late last year the same ex-boss invited me to be his friend on Facebook. I took very long to press confirm button.” The Mayor Said.
There are several barriers to Internet acceptance. Some see the Internet as irrelevant to their lives and just don’t see a need for it. There’s also a lack of digital literacy around how to use the Internet, a problem that’s particularly relevant for the elderly population.
“We are also making it mandatory that for every housing development there should be provision for internet connection. This going to be one of the attributes of our World Class City come 2025 but the roadmap begins now. We are enthused with this program and are confident that it will be fully embraced.” Mayor Manyenyeni added.
The ZOL Zimbabwe effort is primarily aimed at expanding low cost gigabit fiber speeds to homes and businesses, critical not just for the growing tech scene, but really all companies and individuals that are increasingly dependent on cloud computing and interconnectivity.
TechUnzipped