17 April 2013

TELECOM Namibia today has announced that it plans to build a fibre-based, mobile and wireless telecommunication infrastructure at Farm Gross Haigamas, 30km south of Windhoek.

Farm Gross Haigamas is a Greenfield development which has been turned into a golf and residential oasis – dubbed ‘Omeya’ - sprawling over 260 hectares beneath the Auas Mountains.

Telecom Namibia will build a WiFi network to ensure wireless coverage throughout the estate and rollout fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) which uses optical cables to deliver ultra-fast broadband and telephone services with network interface speeds of more than 100Mbps.

The telecommunication giant, through its cellular company Leo, will also build a 3G mobile base station at Omeya, which will be complemented with 4G towards the end of this year.

Once complete, the network will offer voice, IP, data, internet, telecommunications services and value added services (VAS) to residents at the Greenfield development.

The combination of FTTH, WiFi and mobile network will give seamless access to all Omeya residents and visitors.

“Although the initial goal is to provide basic WiFi Internet access, we are actually building a high-speed fibre-to-the-home network that will be delivering even more services and applications in the future,” said Heiko Trost, Telecom Namibia’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Trost explained further that the network solutions for Omeya provide the convenience and flexibility of wireless with the power of direct fibre connection to homes that comes with plenty of performance for more demanding applications such as high speed broadband access and live video surveillance.

Omeya will be connected to Telecom Namibia’s national fibre backbone in a ring protected design towards Windhoek to the north and Rehoboth to the south.

“We plan to deploy fiber high speed solution to help us better position our services against competitive offerings, as well as expand our offering into areas where our competitors are currently lacking,” said Hein Bader, Telecom Namibia‘s Chief Operations Officer. “Our decision to deploy fibre high speed solution is a direct response to customer desire for bandwidth speed and affordability.”

Bader said that the provision of WiFi and fibre high speed solution for Omeya strengthens Telecom Namibia‘s portfolio and aligns with its focus to continuously meet the highest standards of customer satisfaction by constantly improving the capabilities, quality, and delivery of products and services.

“Telecom Namibia is ready to expand its reach to any Greenfield development like Omeya in order to meet customer demands for new solutions,” he added.

The advantages of digital networks have been clearly demonstrated in countries where fiber high speed solution has been in place for some time. There is anecdotal evidence that the presence of high speed broadband and its related services changes people’s lives and enhances the values of properties while also ensuring the rapid sale of properties relative to non-fibre enabled communities.