Rwandan govt defends fibre investment

Rwanda's government says its investment in the national fibre optic cable is in the interest of the public, reports All Africa.

Telecoms raised concerns last week over the government's direct role in providing telecom services through the national fibre optic network. They believe the government wants to compete with them on Internet service provision with its 2 300 kilometres of fibre optic cable under construction across the country.

However, Patrick Nyirishema, head of the IT department at the Rwanda Development Board, which implements the national backbone project, says the project is in the interest of the public.

Kuwaiti phone company Zain is in talks with Emirates Telecommunications (Etisalat) to sell a majority stake in Zain Group, Al-Seyassah reported, without saying where it got the information, states Bloomberg.

A Zain delegation met with officials at the United Arab Emirates phone company last week.

Zain CEO Nabil bin Salama claims the company recently completed a $9 billion sale of most of its African operations to Bharti Airtel. However, Zain is not in talks to sell a stake, Bin Salama told a news conference at the time.

Western Digital (WD) has given some of its partners in Egypt a sneak preview of its latest offerings for the market at a special roundtable event in Cairo, says ITP.net.

WD celebrates 40 years this year and plans to reinforce its focus and support for its partners in Egypt.

"Egypt has always been a focus region for us," says WD regional chief Khwaja Saifuddin. "We work through our regional as well as in-country distributors to support the local channel. It is one of the success story markets for WD, as we enjoy a very high market share in Egypt."