TELECOMMUNICATIONS STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA

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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_at_bta.org.bw
• Website www.bta.org.bw
• ITU-T WORKSHOP, KASANE, BOTSWANA JULY 26, 2002

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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

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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

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STANDARDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONTD

• 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.

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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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• Some problems that were associated with lack of
  standards and how the companies dealt with them
  included the following

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• 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.

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STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONTD

• The committee is in the process of preparing more
  standards in the area of telecommunications.

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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

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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.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA

• THANK YOU !!!
• ITU-T WORKSHOP, KASANE, BOTSWANA JULY 26, 2002