By Emeka Aginam
The Enugu Coal city and its environs will now be part of the 21st centuary knowledge  economy as Zinox Telcoms is set to upgrade the  Coal city  with  Wifi project following a buyout of the Enugu state Government in the Joint Venture.

CES1: US Computer Electronics Association (CEA) L-R: President, Gary Shapiro, ITAN President, Jimson Olufuye and Ola Akinyemi, ITAN NEC member at the just concluded Computers and Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, USA

Zinox telecoms,  was  launched two years ago  with a mandate to cost effectively connect the next 30m unnerved Nigerians in rural areas to the global knowledge domain.

With this initiative,  Zinox  has kept its commitment that it was willing to buy out the state government’s 80% in the JVA by paying  over  N140m.

By this acquisition, Zinox is now responsible for the implementation of the Coalcity-Wifi in support of the vision of the Enugu State Government.

The Chief  Operating Officer of  Zinox Telecomms, Engr. Theophilus Nweke who  satted this  in a statement noted that at the  moment,  the network has been demobilized to enable the Management of Zinox telecoms do a system capacity and inventory audit and re-strategize on how best to run the network  in  a capital city with few major industries.

‘We want to make sure that at the end of the day that we do not totally compromise the social responsibility minded intentions with which we launched the partnership even though we have bought out the Enugu state Government’ he said.

This network, according to him,  remains the fastest network in Enugu, adding that   Zinox would upgrade the network systematically on the basis of supply and demand, and generally ensure that the Coalcity Wifi offers the best platform to those living in the capital city.

Nweke said that he would have to resubmit a fresh proposal to the Board to enable her take decisions on how best to build a customer base that is not purely commercial driven as initially agreed with the state government, without compromising quality.

’We are concerned more with how the geniuses from poor families in Enugu like any other city shall have global access at N10,000 per annum in order to facilitate Enugu as the knowledge Hub of the South East’ he added.

Zinox Telecoms, which pioneered Super Wifi in Africa in support of her parent company’s – Zinox Technologies’ promotion of Knowledge Democracy in Nigeria,  entered a joint venture with Enugu state government but the partnership could not inject more capital to meet with a sudden surge in the demand for connectivity in the city and this led to a disagreement and Zinox offered to buy out the state government which owned 80% of the JVA in order to have the flexibility to operate the network.