6.2 ICT INFRASTRUCTURE It is imperative that Somalia has pervasive and affordable ICT Infrastructure in order to support national development goals and global competitiveness. To help address the limited availability and high cost of ICT infrastructure in Somalia the Policy focuses on the following infrastructure areas: 1. 2. a) b) c) Facilitating and support the development of efficient and secure nationwide communications infrastructure that provides affordable and pervasive broadband connectivity and accelerates socio-economic development in all parts of Somalia Ensuring that all telecommunication operators have access to Fibre links between all major urban areas, Multiple fibre connections to global and regional backbones, Efficient local interconnection points, d) a universal access strategy which supports provision of access in underserved areas 6.2.1 INTERNATIONAL & NATIONAL BACKBONES To ensure there is sufficient and reliable access to international and national broadband capacity in Somalia, virtually every mobile base station in the country needs to be connected to a reliable backbone network that has access to at least two physically independent upstream links. This requires a pervasive national fiber backbone with redundant loops, connected to international submarine cables and to the international capacity available across Somalia’s borders. This infrastructure needs to be available to all commercial retail networks on a wholesale basis, with efficient and fair interconnection agreements and capacity costs which are minimized through infrastructure sharing regulations and dig-once policies (see below). Establishing a wholesale PPP to operate new backbone infrastructure where needed may be necessary, while leveraging the existing assets of the private operators and government transport/utility operators through infrastructure sharing and dig-once policies. 24