04 Jun 2018

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTC) says the fixed broadband project comes at a time when Internet usage in Botswana and the world over is critical for both professional and personal lives.

Launching BTC’s fixed broadband network Internet service in Tlokweng on June 2, the company’s chief commercial officer, Mr Edward Wicks said the fixed broadband transformation project was a testament of the corporation’s constant aim to improve as a key player in the Internet and mobile networking services.

He said the journey to the launch of the service rode on the back of a lot of research and customer feedback on how to improve their Internet experience.

“Today we get to exhibit our improved broadband speeds that come with our new plans offerings. Our four big hitter broadband plans are giving our customers access to 4 mega bites per second (Mbps), 20 Mbps all the way up to 50 Mbps,” Mr Wicks said.

He noted that these speeds guaranteed steady and reliable connectivity, giving customers the comfort of fewer interruptions, lags or down times.

Mr Wicks said as a service provider built and owned by Batswana, BTC is cognisant of its customers’ pride sensitivity, and it is for this reason that they worked tirelessly to ensure that they competitively priced these new offerings, for them to be within reach for mainly households and SMEs.

He said it was BTC’s aim to be a pivot for improved user experience.

“We have also made efforts to improve our service turnaround times, infrastructure layout and upgrading through the already P90 million invested in the first phase of this project. We have committed to another P100 million investment to the next phase, which will see roll out to the rest of the country,” said Mr Wicks.

BTC demonstrated how the improved fixed broadband access worked and also gave away prizes to customers that were asked random questions about the service.

 Mr Wicks said the fixed broadband Internet service allowed for reliable connectivity, faster downloads and uploads and streamlining of content.

“Those interested in this service can contact us at BTC for further clarification and they will be promptly assisted,” he said.

He said BTC was the market leader of converged telecommunication products providing retail and wholesale products and services to mobile operators, Independent Service Providers (ISPs), regional service providers and international service providers.

Mr Wicks said the corporation had interconnections and relationships with multiple service providers in the region, making it a trusted partner for both provisioning of services to neighbouring countries and as a transit partner for transit product and services.

In 2008, government, in line with the Privatisation Policy of 2000, decided to privatise BTC and Parliament passed the BTC (Transition) Act to assist the process, he said.

He said in August 2012, in preparation of BTC privatisation, government established Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet) to manage and operate long distance transmission networks and some BTC assets were transferred to BoFiNet to enable it to deliver on its mandate.

Following a successful Initial Public Offering in April 2016, BTC was listed in the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) with over 50 000 shareholders; the largest of any listed entity in Botswana.

In a drive to be an agile and responsive company to customer needs, in September 2016, the corporation  launched a single monolithic brand bringing all the three business units; beMOBILE, BTC Wholesale and BTC Fixed, under one single roof. ENDS