THE minister of information and communication technology, Stanley Simataa, on Thursday officially inaugurated five new mobile telecommunication network towers in the Tsumkwe constituency.
Simataa at the event said Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC) together with his ministry combined resources to construct a total of 524 communication network towers countrywide.
He said out of the 524 towers, the Tsumkwe constituency on Thursday received five towers, adding that four more are still under construction in the Otjozondjupa region, bringing the total number of new towers in the region to nine.
“This is due to the vastness of this region and people located far from each other, creating a high demand to construct the towers to enable the effective communication on cellphones and social media,” he said.
The minister inaugurated the five towers for the constituency by officially commissioning one of them at Mangetti Dune, situated about 196 kilometres east of Grootfontein.
MTC spokesperson Fikameni Mathias said the Mangetti Dune tower is 80 metres tall, powered with 12 solar panels with 3G speed and able to offer network connectivity to people in a radius of about 20 kilometres from the tower. “If it was a flat area with no trees, this 80-metre tower would have provided network services for a nearly 100-kilometre radius,” he noted.
Tsumkwe’s five towers were constructed between the end of 2018 and May this year at variable costs of N$5 million and N$7 million a tower, depending on the technical requirements, said Mathias.
The nine new MTC network towers in Otjozondjupa are situated at Mangetti Dune, Gross Ilmenau, Rooidag Gate, Ozongarangombe, Otumborombonga, Okauha, Okangejama, Kano Vlei and Aasvoëlnes.
The deputy minister of marginalised communities, Royal /Ui/o/oo, at the same event at Mangetti warned residents of the area against vandalising the towers.
/Ui/o/oo suggested to MTC and the ministry to station guards from the surrounding communities to look after the towers to prevent damage, rather than to keep repairing the same properties over and over in the future.
– Nampa.
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