iBurst plans expansion

South Africa-based iBurst plans to expand wireless Internet services beyond South Sudan’s capital Juba, under a three-year plan to provide access to the newly-independent country’s largest businesses and government institutions, Bloomberg reported.

iBurst has four base stations in Juba to service the capital’s population of about 250,000 people.

Company CEO Thami Mtshali said that by the end of June, a few base stations will be up and running in the Abyei region, and he expects coverage to be extended to the entire nation in three years.

South Sudan’s fixed-line infrastructure was almost completely destroyed during the civil war, and the country does not have any fiber-optic infrastructure.

Mtshali said iBurst will rely on satellite connections for its network rollout.

After seceding from the north in July 2011, South Sudan began drawing up its own independent regulations for the country’s telecoms markets and is working on the establishment of a commission to regulate the sector.

The north’s main mobile operators – Kuwait-based Zain, South Africa’s MTN and local firm Sudatel – have been dividing their operations into two units since the south gained its own international dialing code, but they haven’t agreed to a license fee with the government.