Botswana Fibre Network (BOFiNET) has officially launched the Digital Delta Data Centre (DDDC), a Uptime Institute-certified Tier III data centre located at the Botswana Digital & Innovation Hub in Gaborone.
Speaking at the launch event, BOFiNET Acting CEO Keabetswe Segole said the facility will enable Botswana to accelerate innovation in Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and cloud, as well as bring technology services closer to Botswana.
"With this data centre, latency of services can be brought down to 10 milliseconds, compared to 120 milliseconds and 20 milliseconds for London and Johannesburg-based data centres, respectively," Segole said. "Botswana can become the peering point for countries up north, enable CDNs access to a market of more than 400 million people in the SADC region and also become a convergence point for multiple subsea cables."
Segole also added that the DDDC is in the running to become a regional exchange point for the SADC region, with BOFiNET and another Zimbabwean company shortlisted for the project.
David Tshere, Minister of Communications and Innovation, said that government services will be migrated to the DDDC, helping reduce downtime. Tshere also added that the government will soon bring to parliament an amendment bill to the Data Protection Act, which will compel organisations in Botswana to store data within the country in infrastructure such as the DDDC.
"With facilities such as the DDDC, we have a chance to achieve data sovereignty and have Botswana data stored within our borders," Tshere added.
The DDDC will have an uptime of 99.982%, with a downtime allowance of 1 hour and 36 minutes in a year. The facility boasts two floors, each containing 200 racks, and was built at a cost of more than P200 million, according to Shadrack Makhane, the BOFiNET Data Centre Sales Manager.
The facility is currently at an occupancy rate of 50-60%, with a cost of P10,000 per month for a basic rack. The facility was fully funded by BOFiNET's own resources.