Airtel Malawi, one of the two dominant mobile operators in the Southeast African country along with TNM, has announced plans to boost its network with additional data links and to enhance reliability.
Airtel Malawi’s plans to acquire additional international data link capacity and engage new local fibre providers are, according to a statement from Acting Managing Director Abdul Shaik last week, aimed at addressing frequent network disruptions that have affected Airtel’s services.
Malawi, whose population is just under 22 million, is of course a landlocked country. Thus it relies on foreign service providers for data services. However, prolonged power outages in Zambia, road construction in Malawi and vandalism have caused multiple fibre issues, leading to disruption in both data and voice services.
The company has reportedly added ESCOM, a state-owned company mandated to transmit, distribute and supply electricity throughout Malawi, as an additional local fibre provider. In this way it hopes to enhance service protection on its major routes. It is also acquiring additional protection capacity on its fibre links from Tanzania.
According to a report in the Nyasa Times, Abdul Shaik suggested that the latest move will mitigate interruptions caused by issues in neighbouring countries like Mozambique and Zambia, as well as local fibre outages in Malawi.
The Nyasa Times reports that Airtel Malawi is optimistic that these measures will significantly improve network reliability. Indeed, the company aims to complete the upgrades by the end of this month – but says it will provide updates as the project progresses.
