Botswana’s state-owned infrastructure company, Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet), has contracted Ribbon Communications to upgrade and enhance its national backbone network. Ribbon is providing BoFiNet with a multi-terabit optical network that combines DWDM transport and OTN switching. Based on Ribbon’s Apollo optical networking products, the solution gives BoFiNet a fully programmable optical network that supports multiple-routing resiliency and dynamic restoration across its pan-national optical transit network. The network boasts a capacity of 48 channels at 200G per channel, with an easy path to upgrade to 400G as traffic demand increases.
‘Our backbone network is not only vital for service providers in Botswana, but also handles an enormous amount of international traffic, playing a crucial role in both Pan-African and global connectivity for the entire country,’ said Mpho Koolese, BoFiNet Technical Executive.
BoFiNet says that more than 75 of the country’s service providers connect to and rely on its network, which includes 10,600km of fibre covering more than 200 towns and villages.