KT has completed the construction of the ‘Electronic Resident Registration Data Center (DC)’ in Tanzania. Tanzania is one of the East African Community (EAC) countries with annual economic growth rate of 6~7 percent.
KT is currently spreading the excellence of Korea’s ICT to Africa by completing the construction of Rwanda LTE nationwide network and launching a monitoring system for two countries in West Africa.
KT announced on June 23 that it had completed the construction of the electronic resident registration data center in Tanzania, Africa. Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon and other government officials who were on a business trip to Tanzania, Kenya and Oman, met with Interior Minister Alpha Sadul Gulla to visit the main data center in Kihaba City, eastern Tanzania, on June 22nd to encourage the officials that were present.
KT launched this project in April 2015, which was ordered by Tanzania’s resident registration office, and has been pushing it for three years and three months. KT was in charge of building not only the main data center for the Tanzania e-resident registration project but also the construction of backup centers, 13 regional resident registration offices, and establishing IT systems such as fingerprint recognition management systems, network control systems, and resident registration websites.
The project, led by the KT-Samsung Corporation consortium, is worth 46.4 million dollars, and KT will be in charge of maintenance until June 2020 after completion of the project.
KT had to face a few difficulties to complete the project. The main data centers, backup centers, and the 13 local registries were up to 1,100 km away, making it difficult to build a concrete network. The Mwanza area in the northwestern part of Tanzania had so many rocks that it was called the ‘City of Rocks’, which made it difficult in carrying out the project such as adjusting the schedule of building and fiber optic cable construction.
However, the data center construction and operation experience that KT has accumulated both and home and abroad has become a driving force for overcoming the harsh environments in Africa.
The government of Tanzania plans to regularize the electronic resident registration business as KT completes establishing the data center. The Tanzanian government expect that the electronic resident registration project will help improve public services such education, health, and medical services, as well as prevent crimes and eliminate tax evasion.
