Telecommunications is today recognised as one of the most important drivers of economic development, and all countries in Africa needed to work on accelerating African connectivity if Africa is to take the plunge into the e-Pond.
So says Nombulelo Moholi, Deputy Vice-President of Telkom Sales and Marketing, who was speaking on the third day of the International Telecommunications Union`s congress at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
"Connecting Africa is an issue that demanded the priority attention of all African carriers and is a prerequisite for the successful introduction of e-Commerce on the continent," she said.
She said the four critical success factors driving the success of e-commerce on the African continent are:
* Bandwidth in the national and international telecoms network;
* Affordable access;
* Widespread access to computers; and
* Computer literacy.
"To do business, any business, Africa must be able to communicate with Africa and the world, as well as bridge the digital divide - in other words, the gap in access to information between the haves and the have-nots."
Outlining current and proposed initiatives boosting African connectivity, Moholi identified the $600 million SAT3/WASC/SAFE venture as one of the continent`s flagship projects, for which Telkom had committed $100 million.
The company is one of 42 operators from 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and the US that have joined forces to fund, build and operate the submarine cable, which will boost SA`s international connectivity by up to 120 times and cater for Africa`s communication needs for about 25 years.
With less than six months to go before the official switch-on date, work on Africa`s most innovative undersea fibre optic cable system to date is well under way.
The cable, which is on track to go into commercial operation in the first quarter of 2002, consists of two segments. One is a 14 350km link between SA and Europe, with 10 landings in European and West- and Southern African countries and a design lifespan of 25 years.
This link will have the capacity to ultimately handle up to 120Gbps of information between terminals, equal to 5.8 million simultaneous telephone calls, 1.5 million 64kbps data channels or 12 000 digital (8Mb) television channels.
The second segment is a 13 500km link from Melkbosstrand in SA to Penang in Malaysia, with intermediate landings at Saint Paul in R'eunion, Baie Jacot'e in Mauritius and Cochin in India. It will have a capacity of up to 80Gbps.
Current forecasts indicate that international telecommunications traffic to and from Africa will grow nearly sixty times in the next five years.
Apart from providing African countries direct access to each other, as well as increased access to global markets, an additional advantage is that the system will be owned, controlled and maintained by the individual operators, which means that revenue generated by the African operators will remain in Africa.
It is currently estimated that nearly 80% of Africa`s country-to-country telecommunications revenue flows out of the continent, as a result of most African countries being dependent upon foreign operators to route their international traffic.
Other examples of pan-African cooperation cited by Moholi, which are at various stages of development, include:
* The Comtel Initiative, a COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) project which seeks to provide ATM links between 21 African countries. These include Angola, Burundi, Comores, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi.
*.The establishment of a regional network linking all countries under the aegis of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This includes Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mauritius and South Africa. In this regard, 15 regional priority projects had been identified.
* The RASCOM initiative, to be launched during 2002, which aims to provide African countries with efficient and inexpensive telecommunication facilities for radio, television and communication.
In addition, Telkom has implemented Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VOIP) on its international network connecting various US and European carriers. To this effect, the company has signed an agreement with Clarent to provide an international clearing hub in SA to provide cost-effective international traffic channels to and from the African Continent.
Telkom was pioneering efforts to build an African network through two innovative initiatives. In the first of its kind on the continent, Telkom and Zimbabwe PTC have installed a digital ATM microwave link between Gweru and the Zimbabwean/South African border, with bi-lateral payback arrangements built into traffic charges between Zimbabwe PTC and Telkom.
In another seminal project spanning cross-border divides, Telkom has provided a digital cross connect system to Lesotho to boost international connectivity for the Mountain Kingdom.
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