BTC shifts from copper to fibre
Escalated theft of copper cables has prompted Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) to migrate most customers from copper to fibre networks.
“Over the last two years, the scourge of copper theft in our networks has escalated and caused immense disruption to availability and quality of service to our customers,” said BTC Board Chairperson, Lorato Boakgomo-Ntakhwana in the company’s audited annual financial results for the year ended 31 March 2023.
Boakgomo-Ntakhwana further highlighted that the total impact of copper cable theft for the year under review included in the cost of sales is P56 million, substantially offsetting the savings that would have been realised in the cost of sales.
“The Company has since intensified rollout of alternative technologies to replace the copper network.” She said the BTC has accelerated the de-coppering of its network and to provide service through mobile, radio and fibre networks. “Fibre to the home (FTTH) has been completed in many areas of greater Gaborone, Francistown, Jwaneng and Orapa and customers are being migrated from copper to fibre networks.
“Our high-speed radio networks cover 100% of Gaborone, Tlokweng and some villages in the greater Gaborone and we expect to cover 80% of our customer base by 2024, and 100% by 2025. We continue with our deployment of the 4G/4.5G mobile network to drive mobile data utilisation.”
She said the company is determined to drive high speed connectivity for customers to experience best internet service and enable digital transformation capability. In addition, BTC is confident that fibre network will spur internet penetration and utilisation, which in turn will fuel data revenue growth.