Cabling Africa's remote interior

As reported at The Economist, a mobile-telecoms cabling firm with roots in Zimbabwe has, with remarkable tenaciousness, brought fast broadband to landlocked parts of Africa -- "the continent that [network] infrastructure forgot."

"It had taken two years to negotiate the various permits required for Liquid Telecom to take its cable across the Limpopo from South Africa to Zimbabwe," says the Economist report. "A further 18 months of talks for permission to run the cable along one of the two bridges at Chirundu had come to nought. The network in Zambia was ready to be switched on. Then someone suggested suspending the cable between two disused electricity pylons on either side of the river, which would not require any special permits. The cable was strung across the Zambezi but was almost washed away by its powerful current. And then the rigger hired to clamp the cable to both pylons came across a beehive at the top of one of them."

"Even the hardiest of riggers would struggle to fix a cable to a tall pylon while being stung by a swarm of African bees. Happily the intrepid cablers were able to improvise a beekeeper’s outfit from four Thomas Pink shirts (taken from the boss’s suitcase), a pair of overalls, some insulating tape and a mosquito net expensively acquired from a trucker queuing at the nearby border post."

"A fainthearted firm might have given up. But Liquid has doggedness in its genes. It is a sister company of Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe’s biggest mobile-telecoms firm, which in 1998 won a five-year legal battle with Robert Mugabe’s government to be allowed to operate."

See also:  Philippines' city councilor: No more 'messy' cabling