Rwanda’s leading telecom company by market share, MTN, is in talks with TEAMS, the company which landed the fibre optic cable on the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on 12 June 2009. MTN’s Senior Marketing Executive, Yvonne Makolo revealed that the negotiations are ongoing and that they are on a high level. She also declined to mention the time the company will sign the deal or be connected saying both parties are still negotiating. Once MTN is connected to the TEAMS cable MTN’s subscribers are set to enjoy fast and uninterrupted Internet connection. The East African Marine System (TEAMS) is an initiative spearheaded by the government of Kenya to link the country to the rest of the world through a submarine fibre optic cable. The TEAMS cable was originally designed to have an initial capacity of 40 Gb/S upgradeable to 640 Gb/S should the initial capacity be insufficient. Currently, East Africa Countries were the only in the world that has neither intra-African nor direct international cable network access. The region instead is still relying on expensive satellite communication. Data costs in the country are among the highest in the World with costs of up to $7,000 (Rwf3.9 million) per megabit of bandwidth. The cable is expected to reduce costs to below $500 (Rwf283,325) per megabit. Ends
