Impalila Island gets connected to the world courtesy of Telecom
Residents of Impalila Island recently received access to fixed and mobile telecommunications services from Telecom Namibia last week.
The Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Stanley Simataa, launched the services and thanked Telecom for providing an enabling infrastructure and ensuring the provision of ICT products and services countrywide.
“Namibia has made great advances in the delivery of Information Communication Technology with all towns not linked through an extensive network of modern technologies. These developments have incrementally been extended to smaller settlements to ensure all Namibians have access to the latest available ICT products and services,” he added.
The Minister explained that the residents of Impalila no longer have to travel long distances to access services such as banking, because these services and more are now available at the click of a button, often from a hand held device.
“Through technology, we have been able to shrink the distance between towns and overcame challenges presented by vastly remote geographical locations and we have enabled Namibians to conduct business from anywhere in the country,” he added.
John Likando, Councillor of the Kabbe South Constituency said efforts to attract investors to the Zambezi region have yielded positive results, which is due to a steady growth in service delivery and improvement in infrastructure and among the infrastructure provisions they value the investments made by Telecom Namibia to offer high speed fixed and mobile data services to the people of the region.
“The upgrades will allow the people of the region to have instant access to online services and connectivity to the rest of the world,” he added.
Calvin Muniswaswa, acting chief executive officer at Telecom said the delivery of their services are possible due to infrastructure upgrades and installations carried out over a couple of months at significant cost.
“Extensive infrastructure upgrades and installations were done to connect the Island to the mainland and these infrastructures allowed us to provide fixed and mobile services to the people o Impalila Island,” he added.
According to Telecom to backhaul services from Impalila, they have installed two high capacity (200 Mbps) IP microwave links, one from Impalila to Lusese and the other from Lusese to Ngoma.
At Ngoma, they have connected the microwave line to a high speed fibre optic link which connects to Katima Mulilo, which was already established in 2012/2013.
According to Telecom they embarked on an extensive exercise to upgrade and install infrastructure to ensure the delivery of fixed and mobile services at Impalila Island.
Telecom has since deployed 2G/3G Mobile Equipment to provide mobile voice and data services, WiMAX FDD equipment to provide fixed wireless voice and data services, a Multi-Service Access Node (MSAN) with GPON capability to provide high speed data services to government officers, Ministries and agencies and selected lodges on the Island, a Universal Backhauling (UBH) access node to provide high Ethernet services to government offices, ministries and agencies and selected lodges on the Island who are connected to the MSAN by means of an overhead fibre optic cable.
Caption: Members of the Impalila Sipelu Cultural Group entertaining guest during the launch of the Telecom Namibia services at Impalila Island.
