Company to bring phone services to rural areas.
HARARE- A new telephone company Afritell, has been formed
to bring telephone services to rural areas that have insufficient
telephone lines.
The new telephone company is a unique joint venture between
a private company, Africom, and two public sector companies,
Powertel Communications and Transmedia
The three companies will allow Afritell to utilize their
combined infrastructure to rapidly establish a nation wide
telephone service that will benefit hundreds of thousands
of people who at present are unable to obtain a telephone
line or have no telephone service in their area.
Afritell has applied to the Posts and Telecommunications
Regulatory Authority, of Zimbabwe (Potraz) for a license to
operate a fixed telephone network. It submitted its application
recently.
If a license is granted, Afritell expects to adapt the existing
infrastructure for voice telephone and enable the first telephone
call to be made by January 1 next year.
Powertel is subsidiary of the Zimbabwe Electricity supply
authority. It already operates a data network. It has installed
fibre optic cables all over the country, following chiefly
in the path of Zesa’s electricity transmission lines.
Africom also has it’s own public data network, which
utilizes a combination of fibre optic cables and wireless
broadband technology, as well as a satellite system.
The Tribune – 23 April 2004
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