Vodacom enters Rwanda market

One of Africa’s leading communications company Vodacom Business Africa has officially entered into the Rwandan market with intentions to transform lives in education, health and agro business sectors.

Vodacom is expanding into Rwanda through Axiom Networks, a local partner- to collect data that matter for its clients’ planning.

On Thursday, the company officials held a meeting with the 36 clients from Axiom Networks.

They said, they are looking forward to expanding its service in connectivity segment which consists of building data and networks between institutions and their subsidiaries/branches.

Alluding on services that Rwandans should expect, Vodacom officials said for example, in schools they will be able to know (track) how many students or pupils attend school and fail to attend with a reason- which enables the school to implement or adjust to what is happening on a daily basis.

For the agro business services farmers will also be able to receive timely information on say where fertilizers are distributed, the prices, the supplier location, and the market trends.

“We are investing in a three year data center as company…and we have been implementing this for more than a year; but the most crucial thing is to flag it as the first purpose- built vendor neutral data center in the history of Rwanda so far,” said Hamis Shema, the Chief Technology Officer at Axiom Networks.

Normally data centers range from client based data, to national data- which includes details of citizens and this requires huge investments especially of the technology (racks) which process the data.

For Axiom, this is a process that they have in plans and by the last quarter of this year, the project should be up and running along the Internet of Things services to corporate organizations and government.

Vodacom’s investment in Rwanda will also give business to telecommunication companies as the three current networks will be used in storing cloud data for clients like Non-governmental organization, Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA).

For example Care international officials said that they need to collect data to improve their client based services, while RRA official also expressed need for tailor made package which will enable the taxman to collect more taxes in real time.

KT Press