The experts at the Africa Session of the International
Telecoms Week conference in Chicago have described terrestrial fibre
constraints as the mother of all bottlenecks hindering increased Internet
penetration on the continent, reports ITRealms.
During his presentation on the theme “Enabling Content on
the African Continent”, Chief Executive Officer of research firm, Xalam
Analytics, Guy Zibi analyzed the African digital journey, highlighting dramatic
changes that have altered the dynamics of the digital transformation of the
continent.
According to him, the international capacity challenge has
been solved, with most coastal countries exhibiting an oversupply of subsea
cables serving the continent.
He also noted that the reach of such capacity was still
limited due to limitations in the availability of terrestrial open-access fibre
which remains extremely low in most markets especially Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda
and Tanzania among others.
“These limitations have translated into retail connectivity
prices as a proportion of income being 2X more expensive in Africa compared to
Latin America and the Caribbean and 3X when compared to Asia,” he said.
Zibi highlighted the dangers of deepening the continent’s
digital divide with services limited to narrow addressable markets and Africa’s
inability to fully partake in the fourth industrial revolution.
He reiterated the need for more aggressive deployment of
terrestrial infrastructure, especially in metropolitan and local networks to
reach the end users and enhance affordability.
A panel that included high-level representation from Orange,
MTN GlobalConnect, MainOne and Kwese
challenged African policy makers to proffer incentives to encourage the
deployment of broadband infrastructure of scale to support the rollout of much
needed infrastructure to rural areas.
The Africa Panel session at ITW was sponsored by MainOne for
the 7th year in a row and continues to provide a platform for players to share
perspectives on the opportunities and challenges across the region with a global
audience.
The discussions focused on infrastructure challenges as well
as regulatory and economic constraints that impede increased internet access
and proliferation of broadband across the continent.
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