Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) - Gaborone, Botswana

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) is a state-owned enterprise incorporated under the BTC Act of 1980 to provide public telecommuni-cations services in Botswana. Currently it has over 100 000 customer access lines in service.

At 31 March 1999, total assets were estimated at Pula 857 million. Investment in plant, property, equipment and machinery exceeded Pula 1.2 bil-lion at the end of the year. Shareholder equity totalled Pula 415 million.

BTC has a telecommunications infrastructure that is one of the most modern in Africa. Its net-work, composed of an all-digital microwave and fibre optic system with digital exchanges at the main centres, provides a high quality service. The current network comprises 7 300 kilometres of microwave radio and fibre optic links between 12 main processors, each serving a specific area of the country. The switching units have a capacity of about 117 000 lines. Current services provided include national and international telephony, managed and data networks, very small aperture terminal (VSAT), private wires, leased circuits, toll free services, Internet, paging, public tele-phones, voice messaging, telex, packet switching, telegraph and customer premises. International access is provided from Botswana to almost every country in the world.

BTC has also supplied the backbone network to facilitate cellular communication throughout the country and works closely with the two mobile operators - Mascom Wireless and Vista-Simply Cell.

A dedicated group at BTC head office is responsible for the core network and technology strate-gy, while the local access network is developed Services, an International Business Unit, a Public Telephone Unit and a Voice Messaging Unit look after specific product services. Separate supporting units, information technology and properties are already in place.

BTC also provides virtual telephony services, paging and data communication for corporate net-works.