The landing of WACS on the Swakopmund beach on 8 February 2011
WACS to be supported by Cape Verde-based Alcatel-Lucent cable ship to ensure rapid response time.

Paris, 24 April 2013 - Alcatel-Lucent and the West Africa Cable System (WACS) consortium have signed a contract for the maintenance of more than 9,000km of the WACS system linking South Africa to Portugal. In commercial service since May 2012, WACS interconnects 13 African countries including Namibia, unleashing a new wave of broadband capacity on the continent and enhancing international connectivity.

Under the new agreement WACS will join the Atlantic Private Maintenance Agreement (APMA), allowing the consortium to access Alcatel-Lucent’s maintenance vessels, as well as experienced, fully trained, and certifiedspecialist personnel for cable repairs.

In delivering high-speed bandwidth of more than five terabits-per-second, the WACS infrastructure provides open access to regional telecom operators and Internet service providers. Furthermore, it contributes to opening up broadband in Africa, lowering the cost of access and allowing the delivery of innovative applications such as e-education and e-health, contributing to the improvement of people’s lives.

Commenting, Dr Angus Hay, Chairman of WACS Management Committee said: “With the start of its commercial service, WACS is already giving impetus to African economies along its cable route. This makes it even more critical to ensure optimal network availability and quality of service. Alcatel-Lucent’s world-class technical support and capabilities, including state-of-the-art cable ships, will further enhance the reliability that our low-latency system delivers to meet the performance and stability required.”

Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks said: “This contract underlines Alcatel-Lucent’s leading role as a marine service provider, helping operators maintain their networks with the highest standards of service reliability and at the highest level of end-to-end efficiency. With the recent establishment of our depot in Cape Verde, we are able to offer the shortest possible mobilization time for any repair operations off West Africa.”

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.

Telecom MD Frans Ndoroma flanked by Joseph ‘Smokey’ Hilongwa (left) and Albinus ‘Danny-Boy’ Felicianu (right) during the boxer’s courtesy visit to Telecom Namibia today.

By Oiva Angula
12 April 2013

Telecom Namibia Managing Director Frans Ndoroma received two recently crowned boxing champions at his office in Windhoek today.

The two boxers – Joseph ‘Smokey’ Hilongwa and Albinus ‘Danny-Boy’ Felicianu - recently inspired the country after defeating their challengers in Windhoek on 29 March 2013.

‘Smokey’ won the WBF International Super Flyweight title against the South African Dalisiswe Komani, while ‘Danny-Boy’ defeated Hebert Quartey from Ghana to win the new IBF World Youth Super Featherweight title.

‘Smokey’, who also holds the World Boxing Association (WBA) Africa Flyweight title, won the 12-round bout on a unanimous decision. The judges scored it 118-110, 115-113, 116-112 in his favour.

‘Danny-Boy’ won on points in a 10-round bout. All three judges scored 98-88 in the Namibian’s favour.

Both ‘Smokey’ and ‘Danny-Boy’ were accompanied by their managers/promoters Ludwig Haimbodi of Warriors Promotions and Simon Kinda Nangolo of Kinda Promotions, respectively.

The two boxers, who thanked Telecom Namibia for making the event possible through sponsorship, presented the company’s MD with the gloves they wore in their respective March 29 bouts.

“This [Telecom Namibia] is the house where champions are born. Working with Telecom Namibia more world [boxing] champions are still going to be born,” quipped Nicanor Nakaleke, chairman of Kinda Promotions.

The Telecom MD congratulated the boxers on their latest exploits in the ring, saying, “You fought not only for your own glory, you represented the Telecom Namibia brand in a fitting way, the Namibian flag, and proud that you represent our country so well.”

Ndoroma however cautioned against shady boxing promoters who are out to make a quick buck and congratulated the two boxing stables for a fantastic job that has put the two of pugilists on top of the boxing world and the country 'on the world map' once more.

“We believe boxing has a future; that is why we are sponsoring the game even at the grassroots level,” he said. “There is already a good foundation. If we achieve sustainability [in governance of the business of boxing], the future is bright.”

Ndoroma urged boxing promoters to go out and identify talents among the youth in different communities of the country in order to steel them into national and world champions.

“I am looking forward to again witnessing our champions’ superior firepower, steely determination and gritty spirit in future,” he concluded.