JHB City Council terminates BWired contract

The City of Johannesburg has terminated its contract with CitiConnect Communications, the company that was chosen to set up and manage the city’s broadband project.

According to a report by Businesstech, the ZAR 1.2 billion project was supposed to go live on 01 July 2013 after a three-year building phase and then be run by CitiConnect company BWired for twelve years. However, according to City of Johannesburg project leader, Zolani Matebese, CitiConnect’s project was terminated because of a failure to honour its contract obligations.

The fibre optic network was designed by Ericsson South Africa, and was to be one of the biggest roll-outs of its kind in the southern hemisphere in view of its 1.2TB core capacity and 940 km coverage, giving Johannesburg ‘smart city’ status.