Island Republic of Mauritius to become first “unwired” nation

The promise of ubiquitous high-speed wireless networking seems a long way off for most of us, but not for everyone. The tiny South West Indian Ocean island of Mauritius will later this year become the first country in the world to deploy a complete nationwide high speed wireless network and in so doing will attempt to lure a greater share of the World’s cyber business to its idyllic tropical location.

With 720 square miles of partially mountainous terrain, Navini nomadic broadband wireless access is being deployed to meet the residential, business and recreational needs of the island’s population of 1.2 million and will be well positioned to take advantage of next generation mobile broadband wireless 802.16e-based WiMAX.

The Navini wide-area wireless broadband system is a Non Line of Sight (NLOS) WWAN solution powered by smart antennas. The technology provides a very wide range of coverage - miles from the base station. And because it is a zero-install solution within its NLOS coverage area, it takes little effort for the subscriber to get up and running.

The Government of the Republic of Mauritius has embraced the internet and the concept of E-Government, and by the end of the year its entire constituency will be able to conduct business wirelessly throughout the country on a competitively priced service that can be accessed the same day the service is ordered. The entire network is being installed by ADB Networks the main Internet Service Provider in Mauritius.

The tiny island is well placed to play a role in the worldwide in information and communications revolution with a high speed fibre-optic undersea telecommunications link to the rest of the world, a policy of training and development for the country’s multilingual population and plans for two more high tech parks beyond the recently completed Ebene Cybercity.

An excellent June 19 article in the Chicago Tribune by Laurie Goering suggests the Government might need to adjust its regulations and infrastructure if it really wants to take full advantage of its unique situation.