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Africa connectivity survey launched

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 26 Mar 2015
Africa's inventory of terrestrial transmission networks has more than doubled in the last five years.
Africa's inventory of terrestrial transmission networks has more than doubled in the last five years.

With over 90 000km of fibre to the home and business deployed in African cities, the question now is: "Which cities and suburbs are taking the lead in building access networks?"

In an attempt to answer this question, FTTH Council Africa ? in collaboration with Africa Bandwidth Maps - is undertaking research to determine network reach and identify Africa's most connected cities.

"Measuring penetration is critical to understand how the industry is progressing. The research will take place in the form of a short survey and will attempt to document as many metro and fibre-to-the-home or business networks as possible," says FTTH Council Africa CEO Juanita Clark.

"The aim is to determine network reach and ultimately understand how many homes, public and commercial buildings are connected and the rate at which this is growing. If we know this, we will better understand what still needs to be done."

FTTH Council Africa is encouraging all African operators to participate to ensure technical accuracy of the data.

The survey is now open for network operators to add network locations to the map, and to update details on the progress of FTTH rollouts.

The results for the first quarter of 2015 will be compiled in April. To make sure their information is included, and to receive a summary of findings, operators need to complete the survey by 31 March.

The survey is available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/africa_ftth_survey.

Fast facts

1. 52 of 54 African countries are now connected to submarine cables, either directly or by terrestrial cross-border fibre optic networks.
2. By June 2014, 44% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa (410 million people) lived within a 25km range of an operational fibre optic network node.
3. This compares to 41.8% of the population (371 million people) in 2013, 40% (345 million) in 2012, 36.3% (313 million) in 2011, and 30.8% (259 million) in 2010.
4. In December 2014, 65.1% of the population (606 million people) lived within a 50km range of an operational fibre optic network node (50km is the maximum theoretical range of a WiMax network).
5. Africa's inventory of terrestrial transmission networks has more than doubled in the last five years.
6. Africa's total inventory of transmission network edges towards one million route kilometres (Africa Bandwidth Maps).
7. As at December 2014, Africa had a total of 586 707km of operational fibre optic network.
8. Of this 586 707km of operational terrestrial fibre, at least 91 182km is within cities.

Taking all of this into consideration, says FTTH Council Africa, it now aims to determine how many people are within zero-kilometre reach of a fibre backbone. "How many homes, public and commercial buildings are plugged directly into the fibre optic backbone?"

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