Infrastructure development in DRC

DRC Plans Ambitious Infrastructure Development
OneWorld.net - London,England,UK
For all the difficulties in Eastern Congo, the DRC has seen a number of recent developments that will form the beginning of a backbone development plan for the country. Canadian NGO Alternatives launched its extremely detailed feasibility study for a backbone plan and the Government has begun to look at some of the issues that will need to be addressed if it is to be implemented. Called Etude de faisibilite pour une dorsale Internet ouverte en RDC, the report estimates that US$233 million (without redundancy) will be needed to build the country a network backbone, a sum that seems modest given the size of the country. It envisages a country-wide backbone of 5,467 kilometres, the largest sections being in the following provinces: Katanga (1463 kms); Bas Congo (813 kms) and Sud-Kivu (652 kms) ... There should be greater interest as the main mobile operators are both carrying large amounts of traffic between places like Kinshasa and Lubumbashi and paying extremely large amounts in satellite fees to backhaul it ... . A key phase would be the construction of a fibre to connect the country either to SAT3 amd/or WAFS or to EASSy on the other side of the continent, reducing the country’s overall connectivity bill ... A fibre route could go along transmission lines from the Inga project, both to the capital Kinshasa and to the hydo-electric power stations close to the mining town of Kolwezi and to another one near Likazi. Similarly it would be possible to deploy along some of the existing railway lines, particularly in the south-east of the country. The Congolese power utility SNEL has plans to construct power transmission lines to the North and North East of the country with fibre pairs for management purposes ... Rumours are already circulating that contracts are on the point of being granted to “the Chinese” (for which read, Huawei and/or ZTE) ...