TELECOMMUNICATIONS STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA

1. TELECOMMUNICATIONS STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA • OTSILE LETEBELE • BOTSWANA TELECOMMUNICATIONS AUTHORITY • PRIVATE BAG 00495 • GABORONE, BOTSWANA • Tel. No. +267 357755 • Fax. No. +267 357976 • E-MAIL: letebele@bta.org.bw • Website: www.bta.org.bw ITU-T WORKSHOP, KASANE, BOTSWANA JULY 26, 2002

2. TELECOMMS STANDARDS – AN OVERVIEW • What are standards? • Computer systems and telecommunications networks are complex systems which require extensive standardization work to enable interworking and communications between the different elements. • Standards can be regarded as tools for rationalizing the range of products on the market and for achieving and maintaining the right level of quality, capacity, content, value etc

3. STANDARDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS • Standards and recommendations are Issued by both international and national organizations. • Standards and recommendations are voluntary – there are no international laws that force suppliers to follow them. • “A recommendation is a piece of advice which if followed by majority will be adopted as a standard”

4. STANDARDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONT’D • National regulations sometimes force suppliers to comply with certain standards for their products to be sold or for their equipment to be allowed to to connect to the local public network.

5. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA • Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) started work on national standards of telecommunications in February 2001. • The standardization work is done by a National Technical Committee on Telecommunications on standards.

6. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • The committee is composed of experts from private sector, government, the BTA, University of Botswana, BTC, engineering associations such as consulting engineers, etc. BOBS acts as Secretariat to this committee. • BOBS conducted a survey that indicated that there was a need to have national standards in telecommunications.

7. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • The surveys carried out were mainly to assess the situation of telecommunication installations/ networking in the country, and to determine the problems that might be addressed by the standards to be prepared. • The surveys were also conducted to determine how the companies had been trying to overcome those problems related to lack of national standards. That is whether they had any standards that they had been following, either international, regional, foreign or company standards.

8. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • Some problems that were associated with lack of standards and how the companies dealt with them included the following;

9. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • Equipment type approval process which the BTA is required by law to perform - Equipment suppliers and network operators are required to type approve “any telecommunications equipment” before installation or supply to customers / subscribers.

10. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • The requirements which relate to interoperability between the networks and also between networks and terminal equipment are broadly covered in the telecomms regulations S.I. No. 52 of 1997. • Licensed network operators are required to ensure that the operation(s) or services they provide are technically feasible and are compatable with the networks, operations or services provided by other network operators.

11. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • Telecommunication requirements are not taken into consideration during planning stage of a buildings, e.g. some building did not cater for telecommunications installations or different variants of networking / cabling standards are implemented.

12. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • The professional communities such as architectural and electrical consultants engineering communities had been doing a good job in trying to take telecommunications requirements into consideration, but it was important to come up with standards which can be used in the area of telecommunications installation/ networking.

13. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • The Telecommunications Technical Committee has prepared two draft standards which are at advanced stage of finalization. These are: • Generic Cabling for customer premises (adopted ISO/IEC standard)- this standard specifies generic cabling for use within commercial premises, which may comprise single or multiple buildings on a campus.

14. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • Administration standard for commercial telecommunications infrastructure - this standard specifies administration for a generic telecommunications cabling system that will support a multi-product, multi-vendor environment. It establishes guidelines for owners, end users, manufacturers, consultants, contractors, designers, installers, and facility administrators involved in the administration of the telecommunications infrastructure.

15. STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D • The committee is in the process of preparing more standards in the area of telecommunications.

16. A REGIONAL PESPECTIVE • SATA had a proposed during the regional frequency band plan (3.1-100 GHz) development, that the band plan should include: • Technical equipment standards and, • Radio Rec. used for channelization

17. A REGIONAL PESPECTIVE • The TRASA committee on Frequency Planning, Technology and Advanced Services felt that only the Rec. on channelisation should be included. • Technical standards will only be considered at later stages of the band plan development.

18. TELECOMMUNICATIONS STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA • THANK YOU !!! ITU-T WORKSHOP, KASANE, BOTSWANA JULY 26, 2002