Convergence offers hope for Africa

Johannesburg, 05 Oct 2004

The development of mobile telecommunications has helped to make the global village a reality for those who are affluent, but the so-called digital divide remains a major problem.

This is the view of Andre Wills, a telecoms analyst at Africa Analysis, who believes that continuing developments in this field will help to narrow the divide in the main, but that the gap between the 'haves` in the centre and the 'have-nots` around the periphery will continue to grow.

"The thing is that people are continuously adopting the latest technologies, meaning that the technological norm keeps evolving, which in turn leads to a constantly increasing gap between those on the fringes - for example in remote rural communities - and those in the centre," he says.

"I believe that while it will be almost impossible to totally overcome such a vast gap, I do think that the convergence of technologies will help Africa as a whole to close the gap on the developed world."

Wills says one way in which convergence may help Africa is through the potential offered by fixed-mobile, which would see a single device used both at home and when mobile, but with calls charged at different tariffs, depending where the phone is used.

"Africa is slowly stabilising and beginning to emerge as a strong market, and there are now stable economies, such as SA and Nigeria, which can provide a point of stability for the smaller nations still working to throw off the legacy of colonialism."

He says, however, that solving the continent`s many problems will require more than the ability to communicate well.

"Although modern communications has removed time and space from the equation - such as with the Gulf Wars, which were broadcast in real-time to our lounges - our ability to communicate almost instantaneously, anywhere in the world has still not solved the global problem of war and conflict," says Wills.