The infrastructure will support various e-applications
The infrastructure will support various e-applications such as ehealth, e-education and other government applications.
The national backbone project started in September 2008 with a target to be ready in one year. However, the project delayed one year and started in October 2009.
The Head of Information Technology (IT) department of the Rwanda Development Board, which implements the project Mr. Patrick Nyirishema says changes in the project layout caused the delay.
He says the government’s initial plan was to build its own cable but later it merged that the private sector also wanted to benefit from the scheme. This required cable trunking the government to adjust initial designs and the budget, which potentially affected initial timelines.
As a result, the government included multiple ducts (free pipes) in which the private service providers would plug their fibre optic cables without cable duct necessarily digging for them separately.
“The process of deciding on the final configuration caused that delay.
This changed the budget and we imported more wiring duct than 6,000km of duct or 250 containers of ducts,” says Mr. Nyirishema.
