07 Apr 2020

Botswana network service operators and internet providers plan to fight connectivity challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic era.

Speaking during a press conference in Gaborone this morning, Mascom Wireless CEO, Ms Dzene Makhwade-Seboni said coronavirus presented challenges that people never anticipated.

She, however, said they continued to address  challenges and soldier on bravely to provide services, pointing out that traffic for both data and voice has doubled as compared to the same period last year.

Ms Makhwade-Seboni noted that there was a significant shift in peak hour periods, adding that there was a heavy shift in usage from business areas to residential areas, presenting a challenge to digital communication providers.

She pointed out that there has been a surge in internet traffic since lockdown due to the fact that most people were working from home, hence a constant and growing demand for internet.

Ms Makwade-Seboni said as many people work from home, they rely on other forms of communications such as video conferencing tools, which require plenty capacity and that leads to challenges.
 
She said large capacity upgrades were required and adjustments made to networks and the realization that devices are difficult to come by because of the impact on supply chains.

Ms Makwade-Seboni said they have re-prioritized roll-out plans to service emerging trends and increase capacity to accommodate new usages.

She mentioned that they have network upgrades to cater for rise in demands, and monitors network and would take action as appropriate.

The CEO for Orange Botswana, Dr Patrick Benon explained that some of the technical equipment was saturated because of the shift.

Dr Benon indicated that they were facing challenges mainly on two components of the network, being the radio access network and the national transmission, where there was saturation.

He indicated that there have short and long term actions to resolve the challenges, stating that the national transmission would be migrating the congested microwave links to fiber.

They will be leveraging BoFINET equipment, adding that regarding the radio access network, they would be optimizing and upgrading the sites, saying the activity was done by engineers on a daily basis.

Regarding long term action, Dr Benon said that they have embarked on a total renewal of radio access network, which should help to significantly improve the quality of service.
Meanwhile Dr Benon stated that to support the students working from home, they have facilitated access to E-education platforms by providing access for free or at discounted price.

He further mentioned that to support the transformation of Botswana into a cashless society, Orange has increased the Orange Money wallet limit from P4 000 to P30 000 to allow people to do more transactions.

Furthermore, he stated that there were donating 1 000 SIM cards with unlimited calls amongst them to the health workers to facilitate their communication to manage the crisis. ENDS