The City of Cape Town is considering a plan to roll-out fibre optic cable throughout its municipal area to make it Africa`s first wireless city, the mayor`s office confirmed today.
Robert Macdonald, spokesman for Cape Town executive mayor Helen Zille, says plans are under discussion that could mean an investment of between R300 million to R400 million to lay fibre optic cable throughout the city environs.
"Improved communications are essential for making Cape Town a good place to do business and the combination of fibre optic and wireless technologies are key to that," he says.
Macdonald says part of the reasoning behind the investment is to make the city ready for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, while the labour involved in laying the fibre would help job creation in the short-term, and it will also help reduce the cost of Cape Town`s R100 million telecoms bill.
"Also, global supply chain management requires extremely good communication and this plan will be central to that," he says.
Global supply chain models involve various manufacturers making components for a larger supplier that are finally assembled in a central point.
Early stages
"For instance, a helicopter manufacturer could have the blades made in Cape Town to be shipped somewhere else for final assembly; this requires extremely good communication," Macdonald says.
Nirvesh Sooful, City of Cape Town CIO, says the plans are still in their early stages, but are based on ideas and proposals that have been in circulation for some time.
"We will probably use our private telephone network licence as the basis of the authority to lay the fibre optic cable," he says.
Sooful also says the overall investment would be done over a number of years.
A telecoms consultant, who asked not to be named, says the project is key to the development of the city`s and the Western Cape`s economy and that the new Electronic Communications Act probably allows this kind of project to happen.
"We are still waiting for what kind of licences municipalities will gain under this law, but it seems quite promising that they will be proper telecommunications utilities in all but name," the consultant says.
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