Africa Online Rolls Out The WiMAX Technology in Tanzania

WiMAX rollouts began with the aim of delivering high quality Internet Protocol (IP) data services to fixed and nomadic users within the Africa Online network and over time grow the networks to support increasing levels of mobility.

Africa Online Tanzania Operation projects that by the end of 2009, all its Corporate Clients will have been migrated to WiMAX. This includes clients found within Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Moshi and Zanzibar. Additional regions that would be WiMAX ready by January 2010 shall also be included soon.

With the joint efforts of the Technical Team as well as the Service Delivery Team, Africa Online succeeded in accomplishing the first phase of WiMAX and MPLS set up within Dar es Salaam. The second phase was also completed on December, 2008.

In a country like Tanzania where the broadband connections in the country are quite minimal, there is ample chance of growth for the Wireless Technology. We are therefore optimistic that WiMAX as a technology will allow us to have relatively faster penetration to the current market situation.

With WiMAX, the goal is to deliver a true multi-media broadband experience, superior to that delivered by all current day broadband services in Tanzania. We are sure that we will be able to offer dedicated services; real time applications [voice (VoIP) and business applications i.e. Oracle & SAP.]

Major feat was the migration of a live link from one platform to the other and for this we say a big kudos to the entire Tanzania technical team for a job well done.

So far the deployment has been to some extent successful. Though it is still difficult for some clients to see the variation between the old OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and the new wireless technology, the department is working on the quality of service guidelines that will ensure clients get the service according to their priorities. This is mainly by creating a default quality of service and classifying the traffic according to a list of primacy.

The WIMAX technology is currently being deployed in Uganda with other operations set to follow suit.