On 7 March 2024, the second phase of the national fibre backbone being rolled out by Fibre Connections, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandwidth and Cloud Services (BCS), and Dandemutande was commissioned at a ceremony held in Somabhula. This project sees the deployment of fibre optic cable alongside railway tracks using the right of way (ROW) of National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ). In December 2022, BCS announced it had completed the 1,001-km first phase, a fibre route along railway lines from Beitbridge on the border with South Africa to Victoria Falls on the border with Zambia via Rutenga – Somabhula – Bulawayo – Nyamadhlovu – Sawmills – Dete – Hwange (see Zimbabwe: BCS Announces Completion Of 1,001-Km Fibre Route Along Railway Lines From Beitbridge – Bulawayo – Victoria Falls). The second phase now completed included the deployment of 500-km of fibre network from Somabhula – Gweru – Harare (the capital), Harare – Mutare, and from Bulawayo – Plumtree. A third phase reportedly includes a route from Rutenga to Chikwalakwala. Technomag reports that the fibre optic network has 96 fibre cores and is initially equipped at 100 Gbps.
Source: Dandemutande, The Chronicle, The Herald, Technomag, National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ)
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