Mike Jensen
Since the Internet depends on the quality of the underlying telecommunication infrastructure, the poor quality of the network remains a basic impediment to rapid growth in Internet use. While most African countries are extending and modernising their telecommunication networks, sub-Saharan Africa’s tele-density has stayed at less than one per 200 inhabitants.
The telecommunication network is mainly analogue and many sections are highly unreliable, especially during the rainy season.
On a regional basis, Africa has the least developed infrastructure with only 2% of the world’s telephones and 12% of the population. There are huge disparities in the state of existing telephone networks from one African country to another. Those countries that have prioritised telecommunications are installing digital switches with fibre optic inter-city backbones and the newest cellular and mobile technology.
Among the world’s most sophisticated national networks, for example, are in Botswana and Rwanda where 100% of the main lines are digital, compared with 49,5% in the United States.
At the other end of the scale, countries like Madagascar and Uganda have unreliable analogue telephone systems and poor national links between urban centres. Some countries such as Mali, Niger and Zaire have only one telephone line for every 1 000 people.
The liberalisation of the sector that is happening in some countries will undoubtedly substantially improve this situation over the next few years. (World Trade Organisation multilateral trade negotiation commitments have been made by Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Ivory Coast and Mauritius.)
However, in many countries, governments still see the telecommunications sector as an important part of their revenue base and the public network operators are not free to re-invest their profits in network development.
A number of large-scale African telecommunication infrastructure building projects are on the cards.
Telkom recently announced the Safe project (South Africa – Far East) in collaboration with Malaysia Telecom. The plan is to lay a fibre cable between South Africa and Malaysia making Telkom a hub for African traffic.
The planned infrastructure will pick up regional intercontinental traffic to be routed out through its existing SAT-2 fibre link to the European and North American backbone and to Asia when Safe is completed.
Mozambique is likely to commission a fibre cable along the coast where seven of the 10 provincial capitals are located. In North Africa, a recently laid cable along the Red Sea and across the Mediterranean is providing high bandwidth connections to countries like Djibouti and Egypt.
Also, the African satellite consortium, owned by the African national telecom operators (PTOs), has plans to launch its own satellite.
The International Telecommunications Union has announced the availability of some funds through its Initiative 2000 project to assist in filling the most glaring gaps in the Pan African Telecommunications Network’s terrestrial sphere. The East African Co-operation is planning a high-speed digital backbone linking Kampala, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
Because of the high cost and low international bandwidth available in many African countries, very small aperture terminals (VSats) are becoming more popular for providing Internet access. They offer reasonably high bandwidth and substantially lower costs than most PTO-supplied international leased circuits.
However regulatory barriers have stymied most attempts to use this technology so far, except in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, where the telecoms market has been relaxed.
Internet service providers in these countries have rapidly adopted the VSat technology. VSat hubs in Gabon and Ghana aim to bring in regional traffic, and Kenya’s PTA bank is planning a VSat-based network to link its institutions in the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa countries.
The recent availability of the higher powered KU-band satellite footprint in North Africa, Southern Africa, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the prospect of other KU bands being directed at Africa shortly, further improves the potential for VSat. This waveband will result in sharply decreased equipment costs for the ground stations which only cost R50 000 to R75 000 for full two-way transmission capabilities.