University of Zimbabwe

Graduate School of Management (GSM)

PROGRAMME : Masters in Business Administration (MBA)

Group 2 Members : Angeline Marunda R1713043

Augustine Ruwambara R1712238

Clive M. Munemo R1712785

David Nevanji R921573Q

James Chinyahara R049422D

James Ruvimbo Mutengera R049841G

Leonard Kanhukamwe R1712774

Merilyn Shumba R1712210

Olifina Mutizhe R1712741

Penina Mudavanhu R101417C

COURSE : Business Information Systems MBA 534

ASSIGNMENT 2 : Internet Backbone of Zimbabwe

DUE DATE : 11 October 2017

LECTURER : Dr G. Hapanyengwi
Question: Internet backbone of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe sits right in the “middle” of SADC
countries. The Zimbabwean Internet backbone is viewed to be key to any development that
could occur where technology is central. The state of the backbone, its development and its
future have been subject to some debate. What is the current state and what do you
recommend as the logical future for this critical national resource.

Introduction
An internet backbone is a high speed data transmission line providing networking facilities to
relatively small but high speed internet service providers all around the country. They are the
largest data connections on the internet. (Technopedia). According to Gartner, a backbone
network is defined as a high speed transmission facility or an arrangement of such facilities
designed to interconnect lower speed distribution channels or clusters of dispersed user devices.
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a company that provides internet access to its customers.
Majority of ISPs are too small to purchase network directly and instead buy pieces of bandwidth
from larger ISPs. Larger ISPs are also known as Internet Access Providers (IAPs). These IAPs
core network form Zimbabwe’s internet backbone.

Backbones are typically fibre optic trunk lines and the trunk line has fibre optic cables combined
together to increase capacity. While this may be so, backbones may also include satellite links
across the countries, continents and oceans of the world.

Current Status of Zimbabwe’ Internet Backbone

Zimbabwe’s internet backbone is made up of fibre optic cable connections. The current Zimbabwe
backbone is serviced by the following sub-sea fibre optic cables accessed through Botswana,
Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa:
1. West Africa Cable System (WACS)
2. Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy)
3. SEACOM
4. South Atlantic 3 (SAT3)
5. The East African Marine System (TEAMS)
6. Liquid

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Figure 1 below shows the sub Saharan sea cables and their development over the years.

Figure 1. (https://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables)

West Africa Cable System (WACS)

WACS is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along
the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre
pairs and is 14,530 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South Africa to
London in the United Kingdom.

Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy)

EASSy is a 10,000km submarine fibre-optic cable system deployed along the east and south coast
of Africa to service the voice, data, and video and internet needs of the region. It links South Africa
with Sudan via landing points in Mozambique, Madagascar, the Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya,
Somalia and Djibouti. The cable incorporates the latest developments in submarine fibre-optic

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technology, making it economical to connect the eastern and southern coast of Africa into the high-
speed global telecommunications network. The system is owned and operated by a group of 16
African (92%) and international (8%) telecommunications operators and service providers.
EASSy is the highest capacity system serving sub-Saharan Africa, with more than 10Tbps, 2 fibre-
pair configuration. It is the first to deliver direct connectivity between east Africa and Europe /
North America. It is also the only system with built-in resilience end-to-end. EASSy interconnects
with multiple international submarine cable networks for diverse, seamless onward connectivity
to Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia.

SEACOM
SEACOM is a submarine cable operator with a network of submarine and terrestrial high-speed
fibre-optic cable that serves the East and West coasts of Africa. SEACOM’s reach extends into
Europe and the Asia-Pacific via India. The Pan-African network uses bundled backhaul, open
access PoP's (Points of Presence) and global partnerships to provide end-to-end wholesale and
enterprise connectivity around the world for African and international network and content
operators.

South Atlantic 3 (SAT3)

SAT3 is a submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with
connections to several West African countries along the route. It forms part of the SAT-
3/WASC/SAFE cable system, where the SAFE cable links South Africa to Asia. The SAT-
3/WASC/SAFE system provides a path between Asia and Europe for telecommunications traffic
that is an alternative to the cable routes that pass through the Middle East

The East African Marine System (TEAMS)

The East African Marine System (Teams) is a 5,000-km fibre-optic undersea cable which links
Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa with Fujairah in the UAE. Teams was built at a cost of USD
130 million as a joint venture between the government of Kenya and Kenyan operators, who hold
85 percent shares and UAE-based operator Etisalat, with 15 percent.

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The map in Figure 2 below adapted from a (Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority
of Zimbabwe) POTRAZ Report on Telecommunications Status in Zimbabwe illustrates the
internet fibre connection to the undersea fibre optic cables demonstrating all the IAPs footprint.

Figure 2.
Zimbabwe’s internet backbone is connected to the rest of the world courtesy of six (6) IAP’s and
their current bandwidth capacity according to the POTRAZ March 2017 Report is as shown in
Table 1 below;

IAP 4th Quarter 2016 1st Quarter 2017 % Variation

Liquid 60,000 60,000 -

TelOne 12,400 12,400 -

Powertel 1,860 1,860 -

Dandemutande 1,250 1,335 6.8%

Africom 465 465 -

Total 75,975 76,060 0.1%

Table 1.

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Liquid fibre network in Zimbabwe is complemented by Liquid Telecom’s vast satellite network.
Liquid network offers connectivity to the five main sub-sea cable systems – WACS, EASSy,
SEACOM, SAT3 and TEAMS – connecting Africa to the rest of the world. This enables network
redundancy from the five different submarine ensuring high availability.

TelOne operates an internet hub in Harare that boasts of over 10 Gbp international bandwidth (and
growing). The hub is multi-homed with direct connections via 3 different undersea cables, namely
Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), West Africa Cable System (WACS) and
SEACOM. Points of Presence (PoPs) located at all major urban centres along the highway from
Mutare, Harare, Gweru, and Bulawayo to Victoria Falls from where access to the internet can be
provided. They provide ADSL broadband and leased internet access. TelOne operates the national
Domain Name Services (DNS) by administering the Country Code Top Level Domain (CCTLD),
i.e., the ‘.zw’ and the organisational level domain ‘.org.zw’. The services are hosted on TelOne’s
servers.

TelOne is now migrating its principal international links to submarine cable. So far internet links
are on satellite, terrestrial and submarine cable. International voice has been on terrestrial
(neighbouring countries) and on satellite via Mazowe Earth Stations. The station has two antennas
facing the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean Intelsat satellites. Two international exchanges in
Harare and Gweru act as the company’s gateways. To ensure guaranteed service uptime and
sufficient redundancy is TelOne has invested in the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC)
which owns and operates the East African Submarine System (EASSy). It is through this
investment that TelOne now boasts of the fastest, most reliable and affordable broadband in
Zimbabwe. TelOne also gets broadband internet bandwidth through the West African Cable
System (WACS) and SEACOM.
Powertel’s High Speed Internet is delivered via terrestrial optical fibre into the country through
the submarine cable systems mainly SEACOM (Mozambique) and BOFINET (Botswana) thus
ensuring redundancy. Companies and individuals alike can enjoy unbelievably high speed
unlimited internet on the package of their choice available from 64kbps to as much as beyond
256Mbps.

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 The Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) and the National Social Security
Authority (NSSA), inconjuction with Africom Continental managed to have a direct access to tier
1 Internet service providers of choice through their optical fibre link between Harare and Forbes
border post in Mutare and this connection to the SEACOM undersea cable that enabled the
provision of wholesale Internet to local service providers by Africom.

Significant progress has been made by the IAPs to have backup connection to ensure service high
availability and the table below summarizes work done so far.

Table 2
According to the March 2017 POTRAZ quarterly report the total incoming equipped international
internet bandwidth capacity is currently at 76,060Mbps. The bandwidth capacity for each of the
Internet Access Providers (IAPs) is shown in the Table 3 below.

Internet Access Provider 1st Quarter 2017 Bandwidth(MBps)

Liquid 60 000

TelOne 12 400

Powertel 1 860

Dandemutande 1 335

Africom 465

Total 76 060

Table 3.

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The capacity utilization for each of these IAPs is as tabulated in the table 4 below as extracted
from the status report from Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe
(POTRAZ) for the quarter ended 31 March 2017.

OPERATOR Used International Incoming Bandwidth Capacity

4th Q 2016 1st Q 2017 Quarterly Variation

Liquid 17,095 19,478 13.9%

Tel One 12,210 12,210 -

Powertel 1,860 1,860 -

Dandemutande 1,160 1,235 6.5%

Africom 320 320 -

TOTAL 32,645 35,103 7.5%

Current Internet Subscriptions

From the March 2017 POTRAZ Report there was a marginal increase in active internet
subscribers in the first quarter of 2017. The total number of active internet subscriptions
increased by 0.01% to reach 6,722,677 from 6,721,947 in the previous quarter. A quarterly
comparison of the active internet subscriptions by type of technology is shown in table 5 below:

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 Technology 4th Quarter 2016 1st Quarter 2017 Quarterly
Variation

2G/3G/HSDPA/LTE 6,591,109 6,591,183 0.0%

Leased Lines 1,048 1,177 12.3%

Dial up 16 - -

ADSL 68,370 73,717 7.8%

WiMAX 7,196 5,467 -24.0%

CDMA 32,019 27,611 -13.8%

VSAT 2,491 2,628 5.5%

Active Fibre Subscriptions 19,698 20,894 6.1%

Total 6,721,947 6,722,677 0.01%

Table 5.

IAPs Revenues and Investment

In the first quarter of 2017, IAPs generated a total of $45,553,463 in revenues and invested
$5,889,182. The table 6 below shows a quarterly comparison of IAP revenue and investment.

Table 6

From the above information the Zimbabwean Internet backbone is indeed key to the technological
development happening in the economy and all that could occur in the future. The following part
of this paper dwell on its future and recommendations for further utilization.

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The Future of Zimbabwe’s Internet Backbone and Recommendations
14 major African Telecommunications companies, all leading operators in their respective markets
jointly own WIOCC a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) this include Zimbabwe’s own TelOne.
Going into the future as bandwidth demand capacity increases it will be a strategic move to
increase stake in this vehicle which controls the EASSy, EIG and WACS cable systems, enabling
it to offer cost-effective diversity propositions to meet customer demands for a seamless resilience
offering.
A recommendation for in country expansion will be to link all Major Cities, towns and Growth
points to enable access to value added services as shown in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3.

With the Zimbabwean Government rolling out computer Centres at former Zimpost offices
nationwide the expansion of the fibre network into all towns will come in handy in the following
sectors education, health, mining and agricultural sectors. This will in-turn assist the nation realize

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the benefit of the ZIMASSET (Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic
Transformation) economic blueprint.

In health a nationwide distributed internet will enable other critical functions, such as eHealth,
where nurses, doctors and health workers countrywide and internationally will be able to diagnose
and discuss health issues online. This will help to address the severe shortage of doctors and
specialists that we face in Africa, because the remotest rural clinics will be able to conduct video
consultations with specialists from the patient’s bedside.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 9 million children drop out of primary school every year
according to the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Internet is a resourceful tool that can
improve and transform the education sector and contribute to economic transformation of African
nations, a new study by the Internet Society indicates. Examples of such over the top internet
services in this sector include Econet’s Ruzivo, E-learning among others. On the same note the
internet will also enable online education service delivery like the online lectures we are currently
having at a large scale. This will also enable Zimbabwe access to other guest lecturers from
developed economies augmenting the local lecturers.

In the agricultural sector with the real-time data provided, it can be possible for farmers to work
in the acres of land and still watch their assets across entities such as their field, machinery and
finance, monitored without being physically present. Internet of Things (IoT), combined with big
data, further provides farmers with a wealth of information that they can use to optimize efficiency,
maximize productivity, and maintain the quality of food in the supply chain – from field to fork

Deploying broadband in rural areas and developing countries to bring the internet and all its
benefits to the whole nation of Zimbabwe will not be enough by itself. There has to be awareness,
demand and content. According to Satya N. Gupta, Country Managing Director of Bluetown, the
most important key criteria for establishing meaningful connectivity in rural areas consists of the
following low cost technology; low power for areas that are generally off-grid; low maintenance
systems where digital skills on the ground are limited; local control to ensure better quality of
service; and local cloud, so that users can enjoy relevant content and government services without

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having to make use of expensive international connectivity. From this background we recommend
the future development of the country’s backbone as shown in Figure 3 above.

The disruptive Internet of Things (IoT) technology is another future technology which calls for the
in country expansion of the internet backbone. We recommend this backbone expansion for the
mining industry to target the mainly the Great Dyke mineral deposit belt. This will bring the
following benefits to the mining sector.

According to Telecom World, as the population continues to grow, there is increased pressure on
the mining industry. Currently, 3.11 million pounds of minerals, metals and fuel are required by
each person in their lifetime. The expectation for the next decade is that the Internet of Things will
be used throughout the trade. The idea is that sensors generate a huge amount of raw data that is
analyzed in real time and translated into recommendable actions for equipment operators.
There are two key reasons for this: to improve performance and boost productivity, while
eliminating unnecessary costs and waste, and being able to anticipate machinery failures. Known
as the Industrial Internet of Things, factories and plants are seen covering their machinery with
smarter, cheaper and smaller internet-connected sensors.

The local mining industry will benefit immensely from mining infographic. When it comes to
developing and maintaining a mine site, IoT will help drastically. Data collected before the initial
digging takes place, will ensure the process is managed correctly, and with reduced risk. This will
enable mining companies to use driverless vehicles and experimenting with Autonomous Drilling
Systems that can operate without human intervention. Operating around the clock, this allows
products to be extracted and processed in shorter time-frames.
The IoT technology will also improve on safety. There are still prominent dangers in the mining
industry, even though up to this point, technology has managed to eliminate some of them. IoT
can help prevent the collapse of unstable shafts for example, because the sensors will pick up real
time data, and predict the faulty equipment/where issues may occur, which allows for adjustments
to be made before anything goes wrong.

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Also availability of internet in all these mining locations will enable automation advances, for
by having standalone products, i.e. vehicles and equipment work together, more data is collected,
which can improve accuracy rates. IoT will also allow mining companies to find the latest
innovations, technology, and development trends to stay on top of the market. Combined, these
create a seamless experience, making the overall job easier.
Having a fully integrated network, monitoring every aspect of an operation becomes far easier,
and only leads to greater productivity and safety. This includes detecting wear and tear on vital
pieces of equipment, as well as projecting when repairs or maintenance is required.
As mentioned in each point above, investment in IoT reduces energy expenditure and maintenance
cost for mining companies.

By having a transparent system, where all parts are monitored, allows for a much more efficient
process. As this continues to grow, the cost spent on workers will gradually reduce, allowing the
industry to become more profitable hence enabling the other financial resources to be channeled
towards beneficiation and value addition in tandem with the country’s economic blueprint
(ZIMASSET).

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REFERENCES

1. Abridged Postal & Telecommunications Sector Performance Report - First Quarter 2017
2. Telecommunications Status in Zimbabwe - Sirewu Baxton
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WACS_(cable_system)
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EASSy
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEACOM_(African_cable_system)
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT-3/WASC
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEAMS_(cable_system)
8. http://www.teams.co.ke/
9. Business Information Systems MBA 534 Lecture Notes - Dr G. Hapanyengwi
10. https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/06/innovation-internet-future-education-africa/
11. https://telecomworld.itu.int/blog/zimbabwe-itu-telecom-world-2013
12. http://www.technomag.co.zw/2016/09/13/future-zimbabwes-agricultural-industry-
powered-internet-things/

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