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@bta.org.bw
 Website: www.bta.org.bw

ITU-T WORKSHOP, KASANE, BOTSWANA JULY 26, 2002
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
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”
STANDARDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONT’D
 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.
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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D

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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D
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.

STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D
 Some
problems that were associated
with lack of standards and how the
companies dealt with them included
the following;
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D
 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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D

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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D
 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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D
 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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D
 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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D

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.
STANDARDIZATION IN BOTSWANA CONT’D

The committee is in the process of preparing
more standards in the area of
telecommunications.
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
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.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS STANDARDIZATION IN
BOTSWANA

THANK YOU !!!
ITU-T WORKSHOP, KASANE, BOTSWANA JULY 26, 2002