Uganda telecom extends fiber to Rwanda border

Uganda Telecom has started work on a fiber-optic link from the western town of Mbarara in Uganda to the Rwanda border-crossing point at Katuna.

When completed in November this year, a significant section of what has come to be known as the East African Backhaul System (EABS) will be in place, giving Uganda end-to-end fiber coverage.

"We have started implementing the Mbarara-Katuna link and we should be done by November," said Donald Nyakairu, an Uganda Telecom spokesman.

The EABS, a terrestrial cable link, is a joint venture among telecom operators from Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

When complete, it will link the five countries to the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY), currently being built along the eastern Africa seaboard from Port Sudan, Sudan, to Durban, South Africa.

Nyakairu, who is also the chairman of EABS, said MTN Rwanda has already laid fiber from the capital Kigali to Katuna, with a second phase to the Burundi border set to be built.

The EABS' goal is to support an increase in traffic and new broadband services and connect the landlocked countries of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to EASSY, bringing cheap access to millions people who would otherwise be left out.

Satellite technology is expensive and is blamed for the high cost of Africa's Internet connectivity.

MTN Uganda, the other partner in the EABS project, has fiber from Kampala to Uganda's eastern town of Bugiri not far from Malaba, the crossing point into Kenya.

Within Uganda, EABS will be hooked to a national fiber backbone, which the government is building with Chinese funding of up to US$110 million.

MTN Uganda and Uganda Telecom are obliged by their licenses to lay fiber. Microwave technology for smaller backbone links into the more rural areas feeding off the main fiber optic routes will also be set up.