Leading Zimbabwean broadband ISP, Dandemutande has invested US$5-million into an alliance with pan-African telecommunications infrastructure company Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group (BCS) to roll out a fibre network expansion project.

The project has been organised to improve the redundancy of the ISPs network, as well as speed, resilience and uptime.

Dandemutande will leverage BCS’ current fibre expansion business and will focus on connectivity between Somabhula and Harare via Gweru, as well as from Bulawayo to Plumtree, scheduled for completion by the end of February this year.

Dandemutande CEO, Never Ncube said: “We will split the project into two phases, the first phase being the 51km of fibre optic from Beitbridge-Somabhula -Bulawayo, which was launched in December 2020 with Victoria Falls leg, and the second phase being Somabhula and Harare by end of February this year.”

BSC Group Managing Director Yonus Maru said the new infrastructure would bring high-speed internet access to rural Zimbabwe, reduce the cost of access to the internet and increase reliability.

The company also announced an injection of US$3-million towards metro fibre networks within the cities their backhaul will pass through thereby ensuring presence in new regions.

BSC has 27 LTE base stations across Zimbabwe and also invested in commissioning five datacentres, used primarily for cloud services and managed hosting services.