Africa's broadband infrastructure projects add up to investments of $6.4 billion, and could save the continent about $400 million a year in call routing costs, says the African Internet Service Providers Association (AfrISPA).
Speaking at the Broadband Summit, in Sandton, this week, AfrISPA executive secretary Eric Osiakwan said a number of public-private partnerships are working on about a dozen credible broadband infrastructure projects on the continent.
The projects include the well-publicised East Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy), Seacom, Baharicom (Nepad's broadband infrastructure project), Infraco's cable system, Nigeria's Glo-1, Main Street Technologies' Main One and Infinity Telecom.
The projects will compete against the SAT-3 undersea cable, which has less than 5% usage after six years of deployment, due to the prohibitively high costs set by the consortium-owners, he said.
Osiakwan noted that West African countries pay an average of $8 per kbps, Southern Africa pays $4.70 per kbps, East Africa $4.38, and Central Africa $3.18.
North African countries fork out considerably less than other African regions for bandwidth, at an average 52c per kbps, he said. This is due to these countries having closer access to international cables, he explained.
Satellite connectivity offers African telecoms operators no relief either, Osiakwan noted. "In the case of one of the poorest countries, its incumbent telco spends $3.2 million on satellite transmission, of which $2.4 million is spent on routing calls within the country and the balance is spent on international calls."
Project timelines
Osiakwan expects the Glo-1 infrastructure project will become commercially available first. Glo-1 is to connect Nigeria to the UK.
Alcatel Lucent has been commissioned to build the system, he said. "The ship left Nigeria, in January, for Senegal to complete the project."
Osiakwan expresses some unease as to whether the $265 million Eassy project will be delivered on deadline, especially in view of the political challenges Kenya faces.
Infinity Telecom, which unveiled a project worth between $500 million and $750 million in 2005, is still in the game, he said. The group signed a memorandum of understanding with VSNL in May last year, to connect Portugal to Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Liberia, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana.
There are some questions over the fate of Flag Telecom's $1.6 billion global build-out, known as the "Next Generation Network", commented Osiakwan. The system is expected to connect India and Kenya, with a potential extension to SA and Reunion, and later Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Mayotte and Mauritius.
The $82 million Teams project, which was proposed by the government of Kenya, is to connect Kenya to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Kenyan government holds 20% of the project, and UAE incumbent Etisalat has 15%, with the remaining 65% distributed among other private investors.
The $650 million Seacom project, which announced it has begun construction, is on schedule to become commercially available in 2009, Osiakwan said.
Main One, a Main Street Technologies-sponsored project, is under development and is targeted for commissioning in 2009. Main One will connect countries on the Atlantic Coast, from Morocco through to Angola, and through Portugal to the rest of the world.
South African broadband projects include Infraco's $650 million project, which is to see SA connect to Brazil by 2009 in phase one, and SA connect to the UK by 2010 in phase two, he concluded.
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