KT Corporation has agreed to establish a joint venture company with the Rwandan government, in which the South Korean telco will hold a majority stake.
The government of Rwanda, through the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), has signed an MoU with KT Corp…
KT Corporation has agreed to establish a joint venture company with the Rwandan government, in which the South Korean telco will hold a majority stake.
The government of Rwanda, through the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), has signed an MoU with KT Corp to provide 4G LTE wholesale infrastructure for MVNOs in Rwanda.
Financial terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed but Patrick Nyirishema, head of the ICT Department at the RDB, told TelecomFinance today that KT Corp would be investing most of the capital in the new venture. He said that stake sizes had not been decided yet but would be based on equity contributions.
“Prior to the agreement with KT Corp, we had been in discussion with local operators and asked them to form a consortium to create the infrastructure,” said Nyirishema. “However they weren’t willing to invest at the moment.”
KT Corp will deploy and operate the new network, which is intended to encourage both domestic and international companies to enter Rwanda’s telecoms sector.
“We are hoping the wholesale network will remove the barrier preventing retailers entering the market, as they won’t have to invest capital creating their own infrastructure,” said Nyirishema. “We want to encourage competition by providing shared infrastructure, which we think will lead to better and lower cost services.”
He said that details such as the deal value and how many licences will be issued had not been confirmed yet, but would be announced within the next three months.
