Project Description
Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic Backbone
In 2008 the government of Ghana initiated the construction of the initial phase of a nationwide e-Government infrastructure for Ghana. The infrastructure is intended to extend the national backbone infrastructure to all districts in the country, provide national data centre facilities and connect al public institutions to a single shard communications and computing infrastructure in order to facilitate efficient delivery of government services to businesses and others.
The government in showing its commitment in developing a solid and dependable ICT infrastructure for the country has initiated other strategic projects one of which we gather here today, the Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic Backbone Project. This Backbone Fiber Optic Network is to serve the Eastern Corridor of the country that lacks in communication infrastructure and thus fails to attract investment to bring about development and improve the lifestyle of the rural folks.
The Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic Backbone is part of a project being implemented by the Ministry of Communications as part of ICT infrastructure development. Alcatel-Lucent Denmark has been selected as the vendor for this project. This project is expected to deliver a Secondary Data Center in Kumasi, add to the Primary Data Center in Accra, build the Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic Backbone, Deliver a consolidated Helpdesk for the government, a Learning Management System and Provision of Managed Service which will see Alcatel-Lucent manage the National Data Center and the e-Government Network on behalf of Government to ensure reliable service to connected institutions. The link is designed with data capacity to carry 16x10G. The whole project cost government €38million with a loan facility from the Government of Denmark.
The Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic Backbone will run from Ho to Bawku branching of at Yendi to Tamale. In all 27 districts and towns will directly be within the coverage area of the Fiber Optic Backbone. The 27 districts and towns are Bawku Municipal Assembly, Garu Natinga District Assembly, Nakpanduri, Gushiegu District Assembly, Karaga District Assembly, Yendi Municipal Assembly, Sang, Nalerigu, Kparekpare, Gambaga District Assembly, Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, Zabzugu District Assembly, Bimbilla District Assembly, Nakpayili, Damanko, Kpassa District Assembly, Nkwanta, Odumasa District Assembly, Dambai District Assembly, Jasikan, Wora Wora District Assembly, Hohoe District Assembly, Kpandu District Assembly, Kpeve, Have, Vakpo District Assembly, Ho Municipal Assembly.
The Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic Backbone Network is expected to attract huge investment in the communities that lies in its path during the first 6months of its operations. The Telcos are expected to now deploy their services which these communities have been deprived of for soo long. We expect the following socio-economic direct benefits for the communities within the catchment area of this project; Attract new businesses to the communities, access to information for information and educational research, bridging of the digital divide between the rural and urban folks, reduce rural to urban migration through job creation, improve health care through telemedicine.
NITA through the Ministry of communication will continue implementing such interventions to ensure full benefits from the ICT4AD Policy Document.
