Kigali Wireless Broadband (WiBro), a wireless Internet technology developed by a South Korean Telecom (KT) for the Rwandan government is showing progress, RDB’s Deputy CEO in charge of IT, Patrick Nyirishema told Business Times.

The project launched last year, will help internet users in Kigali enjoy uninterrupted data connectivity and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.

Following its official launch in December with also a trial period of three months, Nyirishema said that this is the beginning of the third month of the trail and it is early to call how impressive the connection will be but he revealed that so far so good.

"At the end of this month (March) we will have a full report on how the connection will be uninterrupted. As of now the testing is going on quit very well,” Nyirishema said.

The technology will cater for data, voice and video transmission plus other value added services that the market may require.

Nyirishema also revealed that RDB-IT issued out a limited number of modems for free during the trial period and by the end of this month they will go commercial.

Government is targeting to have over 4 million Rwandans gain access to high speed Internet within the next two to three years, partly facilitated by the Rwf4.5 billion WiBro project.

KT was also contracted by the government to build the Kigali Metropolitan Network (KMN) which was launched the same time with Kigali WiBro.

KMN (Fibre Optic cable) is a large computer network that spans the metropolitan area. It also provides Internet connectivity for Local Area Networks (LANs) in a metropolitan region, and connects them to wider area networks like the Internet.

The KMN is going to increase broadband availability to more than 700 Rwandan institutions including schools, health-care centres and local government administrative centres.

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