The City of Johannesburg, South Africa, last month launched the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project (JBNP), an initiative expected to reduce the Internet connectivity costs for the city-based individuals, startups as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The JBNP, a joint venture between Ericsson and the City of Johannesburg, is an initiative focused on connecting the South African city through a 1.2 Terabyte capacity backbone — established to support the realisation of the ‘Digital City’ concept.
The project, implemented through BWIRED — an Ericcson initiative formed especially for this purpose, will cover approximately 900 kilometres once completed, across eight regions of the city.
It will be based on Ericcson’s Multi-protocol label switching solution which is hoped would deliver a true triple play solution that includes voice, data and video.
This would see the City of Johannesburg become one of the leading digital cities on the African continent.
The move is also viewed to go a long way into reducing the communication costs for technology startups, as well as set up the city as a possible hub for developers in the country.
It is also seen as a pilot project which could mean a possibility of similar projects being rolled out in the country’s municipalities..
In Africa, Knysna, South Africa seems to be one of the few cities fully recognised as a digital city after having rolled out a wireless broadband network in 2005 to provide voice, video and data services to its citizens.
The JBNP project is due for completion in 2013.
