(Ecofin Agency) - All across Africa, demand for telecom services is booming. To keep up with the demand, operators are increasing investments.

Zimbabwean parastatal telecom operator TelOne inaugurated, Thursday (April 28), a data center and a customer experience center in Bulawayo, the second-largest city in the country. 

Both facilities were deployed to enhance the speed of the internet connection offered to users and improve the client experience. The inaugurated data center has a total capacity of 120 racks and 400 kVA. It is a Tier 3 designed facility that offers redundancy for all important components such as power and cooling.

Thanks to the newly inaugurated data center’s capacity, “TelOne customers, who are a large part banks and financial organizations, telecommunication providers, private companies, government departments, and a range of information technology service providers will, according to the telecoms company, have highly customizable, fully managed, and secure disaster recovery hosting for carrier-grade IT resilience,” the operator explains. 

Bulawayo data center is part of phase 2 of the National Broadband Project, which aims to deploy 100,000 fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service lines over the next five years, as well as 150,000 long-term evolution (LTE) service lines over the next three years. The project ultimately plans to combat vandalism and improve service quality. 

The various investments made in the framework of that project highlight the government's efforts to boost TelOne’s presence in the local market, amid the growing demand for quality internet. In March 2022, the operator opened a data center in Mazowe, north of the capital Harare. Months earlier, in February 2021, the company signed an agreement with satellite operator Eutelsat to bring high-quality satellite broadband to households and businesses in the country. 

Isaac K. Kassouwi