Uganda Now Looking to Tanzania for Terrestrial Cable Link as Kenya Disappoints

Uganda is reportedly looking to build its terrestrial cable link through Tanzania. According to reports appearing on CEO magazine, the country is trying to fight losses which they incur as they suffer frequent cuts on the Mombasa – Kampala cable route.

Quoting Peter Kahiigi, the Director Technical Services at NITA-U, the reports indicate that the National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) is already working on the alternative routes to Kampala.

Speaking at the annual International Conference on Computing and Research, Mr Kahiigi is quoted as saying:

“An alternative route through Tanzania has been planned by NITA-U and the government, and we expect to start work at least by November 2012.”

Kahiigi say that Uganda feel held at ransom by cable cuts on the Nairobi – Mombasa route as well as the frequent cuts around Nakuru. Most of the cuts have been blamed on road construction work as well as vandals. Uganda also experience major outage in March when one of the cables was offline for more than 3 weeks.

Details of the new route have not been properly explained but work on the route is expected to start in September. Uganda becomes the second country after Rwanda to voice major displeasure at the frequent cable cuts in Kenya as they are land-locked countries.

At the Uganda Internet Governance Forum on Tuesday, the Executive Director of NITA proposed that Uganda should look to implement an Internet blacklist to guard against child pornography, copyright infringing sites, and terrorist content.