The Gambia Telecommunications Company (Gamtel) on Wednesday signed a Fiber Optic Data Service with the Medical Research Council (MRC) at the MRC head office in Fajara.

Speaking at the ceremony, Professor Tumani Corrah, the unit director of MRC welcomed all and sundry to the MRC on the important occasion, noting that during his early days in the country, the only means of communication to their staff in Basse was through GPTC (Gambia Public Transportation Corporation). He noted that on the 1st April 1984, Gamtel changed the fate of communication in the country.

Professor Corah said fibre communication would bring about a lot of benefits for both organisations, and that he looks forward to more communication services.

Mam Dawda Gai, the director of Multimedia Services at Gamtel, who spoke on behalf of the managing director of Gamtel, Baboucarr Sanyang, stated that Gamtel is a public limited liability company in the country, which provides integrated telecommunication services.

He added that it is the first and major provider of telecommunication services in the country. In recent years, he said, Gamtel has steadily created a modern efficient network infrastructure, using state-of-the-art technology in order to respond to the increasing demand of a dynamic market.

Gai described the move as historic for both institutions, Gamtel and MRC. "Gamtel and MRC entered into a contract for the provision of data services using Fiber Optic Cable, which is the most reliable medium for data transmission. MRC (Gambia Unit) is UK’s single largest medical research facility in the developing countries, with the aim of finding medical solutions to reduce mortality and morbidity affecting the developing countries," he disclosed.

Commenting on the fibre connection, Gai further stated that there is a cross fiber cable to Senegal, which was completed and commissioned in 2010. This, he said, will ensure that Gamtel has a Fiber Ring that guarantees minimal outage and maximum availability.

Recently, he added, Gamtel laid fiber along most of the busiest and densely concentrated areas in terms of commercial activities in the Greater Banjul Area (GBA), such as Kairaba Avenue, Bertil Harding High Way, Buckle Street, Bakau, Cape Point, etc. “Subsequently, similar projects will follow suit in other areas in the country,” he revealed.

Gai, however, highlighted that Gamtel, in its quest to creat a brighter future in communication, continues to create high quality telecommunication services, enabling a sound communication environment for businesses, government agencies, NGOs and other telecommunications service providers in the country.Most recently, he went on, Gamteltogether with the government embarked on several ventures to uplift and modernise the telecommunication infrastructure both domestically and internationally.

“In line with The Gambia government’s Vision 2020 blueprint and PAGE, Gamtel joined the ACE Consortium to avail The Gambia its first direct submarine cable connection with the wider world. Also, Gamtel is currently in advanced stage of completely overhauling its domestic infrastructure to a modern New Generation Network (NGN).

With this project, all the towns and major villages in The Gambia will soon have a direct fiber connection as part of the effort to modernise the national backbone. There will be multiple fiber rings across the country to ensure near 100% reliability, security and quality service availability to our esteemed customers,” he proudly stated.

He further stated that Gamtel’s longstanding goal is to provide a complete range of telecommunication products and services at the lowest possible cost to the customers using the state-of-the art technologies.

For his part, Almamy Kassama, the director of Customer Service at Gamcel, stated that the Medical Research Council is one of their longest serving customers in the country, disclosing that almost every office in MRC has a Gamtel telephone line for making local and international calls.

Kassama in conclusion, thanked MRC for choosing Gamtel as their premier, reliable, and quality integrated telecommunications service provider, “to support your highly delicate health research service stations across the country”.

David Parker, head of Information Technology & Data Base Management at MRC, stated that the fiber connectivity will impact on MRC’s work in and outside the country.

He said it would enable them to collaborate faster with other members of staff in other regions and easily through the use of data base. “With this new technologies we can expand and collaborate; we can connect with our colleagues in the US," he stated.