The City of Windhoek says it has no plans to install a 5G network in the capital, but will move ahead with the operationalization of its fiber project.
“The City has no ambitions of acquiring the 5 G network and there has been major confusion on the variation of 5G network and fibre deployment. The City of Windhoek has an existing optic fiber infrastructure network in Windhoek which is used to provide municipal services such as electricity to the public. The City intends to use the already existing infrastructure to offer affordable and quality technology services to residents through the smart city initiative,” City Spokesperson Harold Akwenye told The Brief on Thursday.
Akwenye said the municipality currently plans on,”upgrading and expanding the existing network infrastructure to address concerns such as insufficient bandwidth, increase network speed and upgrade old infrastructure.”
“The project aims to enable Council to operate more efficiently whilst simultaneously improving service offerings to citizens, businesses and investors through ease of online transactions and access to real-time, reliable data amongst other benefits,” according to highlights on the meeting,” he said.
This comes as the Municipality maintained at its council meeting held on Wednesday that it had not approved the 5G project, “nor is not procuring 5G equipment, and has not entered into a memorandum of understanding under this connection as it has been reported.”
According to a progress report on the way forward on the Optic Fibre Monetisation Project presented by Councillors Sam Nujoma, Chairperson and Jurgen Hecht, Vice-Chairperson of the Councillors Advisory Committee on Financial Sustainability, Performance Management and Policy, stated that “that Council did not approve the 5G project at any point, and it is not procuring the 5G equipment nor entered into a memorandum of understanding in this regard. It was stated in the report that CRAN has not awarded any Spectrum Licences for the deployment of 5G to any of the operators in Namibia.”
The report notes that should the municipality decide to procure 5G equipment, “the relevant provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2015 (Act of 2015) will guide the appropriate procurement procedures.”
This comes after the municipality was awarded a Class Comprehensive Electronic Communication Network Services and Electronic Communications Services licence by the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) in March 2020.
The licence awarded to CoW allows for the provision of comprehensive telecommunications services, including the construction and maintenance of network facilities, mobile or fixed line telephony services and is valid for 15 years.
