Rural Africa gets telecom building boom

Eastern and southern African counties have started telecommunications projects aimed at connecting rural areas to cities and increasing countrywide connections to international networks. The projects are designed to accelerate the growth of information and communication technology (ICT) and provide e-health, e-learning and e-commerce in rural areas.

While medical online consultation is the major benefit, projects in Kenya and Zambia are also anticipated to facilitate health care by providing more training opportunities to doctors and nurses at remote hospitals, as well as the ability to purchase items online rather than having to live in the city.

Zambia will initially build multipurpose telecenters in four southern provinces of the country and later expand its efforts out to other regions. Kenya's project will connect nine provinces.

Such builds will be a good complement to efforts building long-haul, high-speed, fiber optic connections connecting African countries to Europe and the Middle East, as well as to other projects introducing and expanding cellular networks in the region.

For more:
- Computerworld Africa documents the growth of telecom in Kenya and Zambia. Article.

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