By ALICE NACHILEMBE
Zamtel Chief Executive Officer Sydney Mupeta says the lunch of the Kalilo site has changed the communication landscape for Chingola in general and Kalilo community.
Mr Mupeta said through such projects Zamtel is taking reliable communications infrastructure to some of the remotest parts of the country that have never been covered before.
He said this during the Zamtel lunch of the communications Tower at Kalilo Clinic in Chingola.
He said Zamtel is putting up 1009 communications towers as part of the USD $280 million Government of Zambia (GRZ) projects.
“At the end of this undertaking which is estimated to last 30 months Zamtel will boast of 1782 sites country wide becoming the largest network by geographical foot print,” he said.
And Communications and Transport Minister Brain Mushimba said Government wants to bring more Zambians to the network grid by taking communication everywhere across the country.
Mr Mushimba said commissioning of new sites like the one in Kalilo is allowing citizens to start using all the technologies and accessing what Government is offering through Information and Communications Technology platforms (ICT).
Mr Mushimba said the lunch was fundamentally important because such infrastructure is needed to access services that is being provided.
The Minister said Government is heavily investing in these infrastructures, hence the need for Zamtel to ensure that every citizen is able to communicate on phone and access the internet.
“Government is happy over the Universal Access Project which has been successful because Government wants people to get online and make calls. As a country a lot of things are going to be digital most platform will be using ICT,” he said.
Mr Mushimba said the challenge for telecommunication companies is that most of the product consumed on the ICT platform are foreign product developed in other jurisdiction but been accessed by people using this internet.
He said developing own applications would cut on cost but product riding on the infrastructure Government is investing heavily on are not domestic which is a cost.
