African governments ought to give fibre-optic cables better safety from assaults and harmonise insurance policies round layouts to encourage the event of tech infrastructure, a Google govt mentioned on Thursday.
Charles Murito, Google’s head of presidency relations and public coverage in Africa, desires fibre labeled as vital infrastructure, giving the terrestrial and subsea cables that underpin the continent’s communications extra safety.
Injury brought on by prison syndicates in search of to steal batteries and turbines from tower base stations and dig up fibre-optic cables has elevated considerably in recent times, creating further prices for community infrastructure suppliers.
“Once you classify that as a vital funding, then that ensures that if folks maliciously harm that funding, then there are stringent repercussions,” Murito mentioned in an interview on the sidelines of the Africa Tech Competition in Cape City.
Google has invested in intercontinental subsea cables similar to Equiano, which connects Africa with Europe, and in Might introduced a brand new subsea cable venture referred to as Umoja, the primary direct fibre-optic route between Africa and Australia.
The trade and telecommunications bosses say improved protections for fibre infrastructure and cellular towers would provide reassurance to buyers contemplating establishing companies on the continent.
Harmonisation
In his engagements with governments, Murito has additionally proposed extra sharing of cable infrastructure amongst web service suppliers to decrease knowledge prices and extra “harmonisation” throughout nations in how the cables are laid.
One other hindrance to fibre growth throughout the continent, through which cellular web penetration was simply 27% final yr, is the number of guidelines round permissions granted to telecoms and tech firms to put in, keep and improve infrastructure.
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In South Africa, the federal government and regulator have urged police to arrest the perpetrators of injury and mentioned legal guidelines must be up to date to take new applied sciences under consideration, however have but to suggest a brand new classification for fibre-optic cables. — (c) 2024 Reuters
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