FOR an hour it seemed as if Liquid Telecom’s grand scheme to bring fast internet access to Zambia and other landlocked parts of Africa might be thwarted by a swarm of bees. It had been no small challenge to bring its fibre-optic cable this far—from Cape Town, near the southern tip of Africa, to Chirundu on the Zambezi river (pictured) which marks the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.It had taken two years to negotiate the various permits required for Liquid to take its cable across the Limpopo from South Africa to Zimbabwe. A further 18 months of talks for permission to run the cable along one of the two bridges at Chirundu had come to nought. The network in Zambia was ready to be switched on. Then someone suggested suspending the cable between two disused electricity pylons on either side of the river, which would not require any special permits. The cable was strung across the Zambezi but was almost washed away by its powerful current. And then the rigger hired to clamp the cable to both pylons came across a beehive at the top of one of them.Even the hardiest of riggers would struggle to fix a cable to a tall pylon while being stung by a swarm of African bees...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/Vi3Y9b
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