Broadband infrastructure will not bridge the digital divide in the short-term because Africa is geographically dispersed and wide roll-out would not be viable from an economical perspective. However, it will boost investment in Africa.
This is according to Justin Spratt, GM of WiFi at Internet Solutions, who will speak at the ITWeb Broadband conference being held at the Indaba Hotel in Fourways, on 8 and 9 October.
Spratt will give an overview of the key growth drivers in Africa's wireless broadband market, as well as making a comparison between wireless and terrestrial infrastructure.
Cables a' coming
According to research conducted by World Wide Worx, there are six major undersea broadband cables that will serve west, east and southern Africa. Seacom, which was rolled out in June, delivers a capacity of 1.28Tbps and the Teams cable, which will go live this month, will deliver 120Gbps.
ITWeb's Broadband
More information about the ITWeb Broadband Conference, which takes place on 8-9 October 2009 at Indaba Hotel, Fourways is available online here.
GLO-1 is delivering 640Gbps to the West Africa region. Eassy is set for roll-out in June 2010 to deliver 1Tbps to east and southern Africa, MainOne will deliver 1.92Tbps to West Africa in 2010 and WACS will roll out 3.8Tbps to west and southern Africa in 2011.
“Seacom alone will stimulate much investment. Having an East Coast cable is a godsend for Africa because the continent's most economically and politically robust nations reside there. Future cables such as Eassy will also have the same affect of stimulating investment,” says Spratt.
He adds that broadband will result in cheaper telecommunications costs. However, he points out that wireless is still the cheapest and fastest way to connect the people of Africa, as it's more inclusive and fuels the macro economic growth of the continent.
Spratt says: “By giving broadband Internet access to people, as opposed to narrowband Internet access, you open up rich multimedia opportunities that make it easier to educate outside of language barriers.”
Spratt adds that one of the biggest challenges is limited or no payment gateways for African nations to procure off the Internet, which he says is mainly due to the Reserve Bank limitations designed to protect currencies.
“Licensing of spectrum is key, and governments through Africa don't have many skills in dealing with this. It is unclear what kind of business models will work online, that makes it difficult to justify big investments,” notes Spratt.
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