By Sorie Ibrahim Fofanh
The Minister of Communication, Technology and Innovation, Salima Bah has said the current internet malfunction is as a result of the current upgrading of all internet services across the country to 4G.
Bah was speaking at the Ministry of Information and Civic Education’s weekly press briefing on 13th of August this year at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conference room, where she stated that the upgrading by mobile network operators will be completed by the end of August 2024.
Speaking about her achievements after a year in office, Bah mentioned Sierra Leone’s hosting of the first International Tech Summit in June this year, which brought together the entire local innovators in the country and other international players.
She recalled how President Julius Maada Bio gave $ 30,000 to the winner of the Agriculture Innovation Challenge.
The minister also mentioned the Launch of Starlink with Sierra Leone becoming the 9th country in Africa to do so.
Within a year, she said they have launched the National Fibre Backbone Two project, and expanded the fibre optic cable to fourteen districts. She promised to work to close the gap of fibre optic cable in the remaining two districts.
“We also, through the Universal Access Development Fund, launched 9 rural telephone sites in communities, and this has really impacted communities that have been saying they didn’t have pole sites to have network connectivity,” Bah said,
Establishment of Emergency Internet Bandwidth in fifty public institutions, support from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to build a data exchange layer that will allow data to interconnect among public offices are the other gains highlighted by the minister.
She said 96.7% of the population now access mobile networks whilst 5.4 million people have access to mobile voice connection (sim cards).
Despite such achievements, she acknowledged that they still have challenges with the sea cables, but that they are working on solving the problem.
During the press conference, the Minister of Information and Civic Education, Chernor Bah apologised on behalf of the government for the current internet glitches across the country.
The Director, Corporate and Industry Affairs, National Communication Authority, Ben-Foday Abdulai said they are working to improve the quality of internet service in the country, admitting the challenges to the current internet connectivity because of the 4G upgrading. He said by the first quarter of 2025, internet providers will move “everything” to 4G.
In his statement, the Executive Director, Zoodlabds, Mahmoud Idriss said the internet infrastructure in Sierra Leone has two-way cables that are underneath linking Europe, to handle the international highway cable that brings the internet.
Idriss said the sensitivity to the internet has increased 100 times more as compared to some 10 years ago.
Copyright © 2024 Politico (16/08/24)
