The Kigali Wireless Broadband (Wibro) technology is set go live, according to David Kanamugire, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of ICT in the President’s Office.

He told Business Times that the technology, which was developed by Korea Telecom (KT), will become fully operational after the establishment of management structures as well as obtaining legal and regulatory approvals to allow its full operations as a telecoms entity.

With an outlay of Rwf4.5 billion, he said, the Wibro together with the Kigali Metropolitan Network (KLN) seeks to increase access to affordable and reliable networking services to some 4 million Rwandans as well as availing market requirements of data, voice and video transmission.

Kanamugire added that since its launch in 2009, KMN’s connection to both public and private institutions has increased from 46 to 80 buildings.

"The ICT sector continues to grow with dynamic performance and stiff competition in the telecom market,” Kanamugire said in an email interview.

"Several businesses have gone online and continue to deliver services across the country using the high quality and high density ICT communications infrastructure in place.”

He noted that efforts to complete the establishment of a national data centre to provide a dedicated power source were underway. Initially, the centre was expected to be complete by December 2009 but the deadline had been extended.

To ensure the program’s sustainability, the government recently launched the 3rd phase of the National ICT strategy to define priorities and sketch a roadmap for the next five years.

"The plan will focus on infrastructure development, service delivery and private sector development. Specialized components of the plan will be dedicated to support gover wment decentralization,” Kanamugire said.

"Rwanda is now fully connected to the undersea fibre optic cables, which dramatically increase internet speed and reduce the cost of bandwidth,” he added.

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