Wholesale network provider Liquid Telecom plans to provide broadband to 40 schools in South Africa’s North West province.

The company plans to carry this out on behalf of the Foundation for Internet Development working for the Department of Education and the Coza Cares Foundation which enables sustainable ICT environments in under-resourced South African schools through collaboration and partnerships.

Liquid Telecom South Africa says it has allocated a dedicated channel on its satellite service for the schools to provide them with unlimited capacity as well as ‘Deep Packet Inspection’ of traffic.

Regarding the Deep Packet Inspection, Liquid says this enables it to monitor the content, destination and origin of data with automatic blocking of inappropriate material.

Part of the installation was completed by the first participants in Liquid Telecom’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme which has been specifically designed to drive both education and entrepreneurship in South Africa.

“Education is vital to the economic future of our country and this project has enabled our trainees to gain valuable experience whilst bringing the next generation of South Africans online,” said Craig Young, head of South African broadband services at Liquid Telecom, in a statement.

Philemon Kotsokoan, IT Director for the education department of South Africa’s North West province, said "Getting fast reliable broadband into schools and enabling students to access information and resources from across the North West is a core objective for us.
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Liquid claims to have built Africa’s largest single fibre network which runs from the north of Uganda to Cape Town on a single thread. Its terrestrial network spans more than 17,000km across Botswana, DRC, Kenya, Lesotho, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.