South African technology firm Allied Technologies (Altech) has teamed up with United States based CityNet Wireless to provide broadband services in Africa, Altech said on Monday.
Atech said in a statement it would use unlisted CityNet’s wireless broadband technology to tap pent-up demand for internet access in the poorest continent, where fixed-line infrastructure is patchy.
Altech did not provide financial details for the deal and did not say which African markets it planned to target.
”Broadband network delivery systems are now at the centre of all global digital communications,” said Altech CEO Craig Venter. ”Our choice of CityNet Wireless as our technology partner in this deal reflects our strategy to expand into broadband markets in Africa, where cost-efficient use of advanced IP-based wireless networks is the key to meeting massive pent up demand.”
CityNet Wireless, which has been deploying wireless WiFi mesh networks globally since 2003 including densely populated cities such as Houston, Panama City and Mexico City, has been particularly successful in reducing the traditional cost of urban networking, using a combination of standard WiFi protocols, mesh architecture for redundancy and network flexibility.
Mesh networking is a way to route data, voice and instructions between nodes. It allows for continuous connections and reconfiguration around broken or blocked paths by ”hopping” from node to node until the destination is reached, according to Wikipedia. ‒ Reuters, I-Net Bridge