The National Electricity Company of Senegal (SENELEC), which is in the process of deploying a nationwide 100/200G DWDM backbone network in partnership with Chinese technology firm Huawei, has announced that it will be able to provide network capacity to telecoms operators, government, public and private companies from December 2023. Based on SENELEC’s existing fibre-optic infrastructure spanning more than 2,000km, the mostly aerial network comprises 53 backbone sites and covers all 14 regions of the country.
Providing an update on the project last Friday, SENELEC managing director Papa Mademba Biteye recalled the company had signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei last December to accelerate its digital transformation. The public company wanted to ensure better cost control and increased revenues by focusing on innovation through digitalisation and the development of telecommunication infrastructure. ‘The DWDM transmission network will allow SENELEC to multiply the capacity of its network, to have reliable and highly available connectivity, while remaining a flexible and scalable infrastructure which will allow it to adapt and meet future connectivity needs,’ explained Huawei Senegal Managing Director Lionel Liu.
The establishment of the DWDM backbone network is currently in the completion phase, following the deployment of the first operational link between Dakar and Thies. The infrastructure should enable telecom operators to extend services to remote areas which are not yet covered by their networks. SENELEC also plans, in a second phase, to develop a secure radio communications network for use by critical services, public services, electricity network automation and smart energy metering.