Pan-African digital infrastructure provider Liquid Intelligent Technologies has, over the past four years, invested almost R1 billion in extending internet access to underserved areas of South Africa, it says.
The business of technology group Cassava Technologies expanded its network footprint and infrastructure, to provide fibre coverage in underserviced areas of SA – with a focus on the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces.
During an interview with ITWeb on the side-lines of Africa Tech Festival 2024, in Cape Town, Deon Geyser, CEO of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, noted the company has been on a drive to significantly increase access to high-quality digital connectivity for businesses, government and other organisations across the provinces.
Last year, Liquid secured R900 million loan funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), to expand fibre deployments to provide internet access to underserved areas in the Eastern Cape and across SA.
The Eastern Cape Fibre Project − part of a partnership between the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), Liquid and the Eastern Cape Provincial Government − is a years-long collaboration that is expected to deliver high-speed internet services across government buildings in the province.
The company is in the process of building a 7 000km fibre network in the Eastern Cape, to connect the municipalities and citizens of SA’s least-connected province.
“We've invested almost R1 billion over the last four years, in order to fulfil the contractual agreement with the Eastern Cape government, as well as others,” said Geyser.
“The Eastern Cape contract requires us to connect almost 2 700 government properties and we’ve connected all of them: 2 000 were connected with fibre and the last 700 sites with interim 4G and 5G LTE solutions to provide basic connectivity.
“Over the last two years, we've had quite a significant rollout phase. And that highlights the value of public-private partnerships. We have a KPI that we must meet, government has the responsibility of helping us with SME development and we provide funding.”
The high-speed broadband services will be a key enabler for the Eastern Cape municipalities, as the province accelerates its modernisation journey, using technology to enhance its overall service delivery capabilities, he noted.
The funding from RMB and IFC enabled the expansion of Liquid’s fibre backbone network in the Eastern Cape, while also helping the company create employment.
The final phase of the fibre deployment will see the last 700 buildings converted from LTE to fibre connectivity, as the company accelerates its mission to increase digital connectivity and inclusion, and support SA’s growing digital ecosystem.
“Eastern Cape has around 4 500 to 5 000 government buildings in total that still require connectivity. After connecting the 2 700, there's still more that need to be connected. The sites of priority were selected by SITA and the provincial government.
“As part of our partnership with the province, we now have to ask: how do we use the infrastructure we have deployed as a base to build on top of that? Do we consider deploying free WiFi hotspots in the same way as we are doing in the Western Cape? We need to think about creating more digital citizen services because the infrastructure is now there,” Geyser continued.
Last month, the company announced it has renewed its partnership with the Western Cape Provincial Government, to expand its free public WiFi hotspots project across the province.
The initiative will see an investment of over R2 billion channelled to the project, over the next seven years.
This, as Liquid continues to increase access to high-speed connectivity, which has accelerated the province’s citizen-centric digital transformation project, which will harness digital technology to enhance living standards and improve government services.
Liquid has established 1 600 free public WiFi hotspots and over 2 000 sites in the Western Cape, at schools, hospitals, clinics and libraries used by almost four million citizens in the province.
“Fibre rollout is a really similar infrastructure development; it’s not an easy process. It’s like building the road. You need the trenching of roads to be approved by municipalities. You need local community involvement. But our team gave a commitment, we're sticking to that commitment and we're executing against it.
“It's good to see the impact it's making in the province. Access to high-speed connectivity is the necessary catalyst for driving digital transformation. We have provided faster speeds, and through the deployment of a software-defined wide area network, we’ve improved cyber security for government offices,” he concluded.
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