Africa has overcome enormous hurdles to become the fastest growing telecoms market on the planet.
This is the view held by the organisers of the Next Generation Telecoms (NGT) Africa Summit who, however, stress that the continent still has room to grow.
The Summit organisers consider getting a billion people spread over a 30 million-kilometre landmass, who speak 1 000 different languages, to talk to one another as a business dilemma in as far as Africa's telecoms are concerned.
“Factor in poor telecommunications infrastructure, dispersed distribution points and vast tracts of rural areas where communities have limited resources, and it's easy to see the issues that Africa has had to grapple with,” say the event organisers.
However, according to the secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Dr Hamadoun Tour'e, the 'dark continent' has made major strides in overcoming these obstacles and looks set to be the poster boy of the global telecoms industry.
“Africa's ICT sector is the fastest growing telecommunications sector globally, with a total investment of $18 billion since 2001,” says Tour'e. “Between 2001 and 2007, the industry grew by 49.3%, as opposed to Asia which recorded a 27.4% growth.”
It's the kind of rapid business growth that usually produces stretch marks but Tour'e admits there is still much to do, and the capacity to do so.
“Even with such high growth rates, the access for broadband is still low. Access to high speed Internet is essential to using and fully harnessing the potential of the Internet. We need to focus on creating unprecedented opportunities for positive change,” says Tour'e.
This is an issue that will be at the forefront of the NGT Africa Summit, a closed-door event hosted by GDS International from 25 to 27 January in Nairobi, Kenya.
A key opportunity for some of the most respected executives in the global telecommunications industry to network and engage in a clear and focused dialogue, the Summit also features key speakers from some of the biggest telecoms companies on the planet.
These speakers include Nizar Dalloul, Founder and Chairman/CEO of Essar Telecom; Tony Dolton, CTO Vodaphone Ghana; Patrick Puges, VP Emerging Markets Technology, France Telecom/Orange and Chris Lewis, GVP International Telecoms & Networking, IDC.
A series of workshops will also expose attendees to issues such as the fixed network and its ongoing role in Africa, mobile data in Africa, mobile infrastructure and the evolving telecoms landscape. For more information, visit www.ngtsummitafrica.com
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