Bandwidth on the trail

By UFERE TORTI, Johannesburg, South Africa

A three-day conference on broadband access and connectivity in Johannesburg ended with participants asking that infrastructure suppliers, owners and operators offer the continent better chances of enjoying cheap bandwidth. Cheap bandwidth is critical to the continent’s desire to join the emerging information society. But with
the economies of most of Africa’s 53 countries laying prostrate, and as Russel Southwood of Balancing Act observed at conference, bandwidth cost is nearly 10 times higher than what is obtainable in the US and South Korea. With this mix of factors, Africa has little chance of playing catch-up with rest of the world.



While the participants that included some 70 strategic and operational telecommunications professionals agreed that the African communications landscape was changing rapidly and new technologies were showing considerable potentials to take access further inland, they were of the
view that the key barriers to bandwidth access were far from being addressed: they are limited infrastructure, affordability and education to go by a new report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as referred to in a paper by the Nigerian telecom regulator Ernest Ndukwe.



The dearth of backbone infrastructure and the fact that existing fixed line infrastructures are mostly based antiquated analogue systems which urgently need to be replaced by digital equipment makes getting broadband access to more people on the continent a tough task.



But that is not all to the broadband challenge on the continent. To Mr. Leslie Tamakloe, CEO and Chairman of Internetghana, a broadband provider in Ghana, the challenge of broadband service delivery transcends the issue of technical and financial barriers and also includes what he called “The competitive barrier.” Getting incumbents to allow private providers deliver services without being encumbered out of fear of competition is a challenge often downplayed. Last year, InternetGhana contract for DSL with Ghana Telecom (GT) was terminated
on issues that bordered on the recurrent struggle between incumbents and private players, which emerged on the scene after liberalisation of the sector in many parts of Africa. Tamakloe said GT’s action was aimed at slowing his company’s market penetration, limiting its expansion
into new exchanges, and frustrating its ability to provide service. At the end, it is the continent’s 800 million people that are denied access to Internet access.



But Africa is not lying low. There are initiatives to address the problems. The West African Submarine Cable (WASC), SAT-3, SAFE, Africa One, East African Submarine System (EASSy) and the East African Digital Transmission System (EADTS) are being positioned to take advantage of broadband access offerings using a combination of fibre optic cables and radio links.



The African Broadband Revolution 2005 which included a conference, workshop and a field visit was organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) and heralded the continuation of the CTO’s global programme of international events aimed at promoting
access to cutting-edge ICT knowledge across continents. “In many ways this was the kind of meeting Africa has been waiting for and this was very apparent in the breadth and depth of questions and interaction that ensued.” said Nick Cabrera, CTO Director of Business Development.



Among the participants attending the conference were Ruben September (CTO of Telkom SA), Jay Naidoo (Chairman of Development Bank of Southern Africa), Marco Signorini (CEO of Econet Satellite, UK), Benjamin Aggrey Ntim (Deputy Minister, Ghanaian Ministry of Communications), Ray Bough (Managing Director of Redwing Satellite Solutions, UK), Harish Bhatt (Managing Director of SatCom Networks Africa, Tanzania), and Annabel Celi (External Relations Manager of Ericsson SA).



The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) is an international development partnership between Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth governments, businesses and civil society organisations focused on information and communication technologies (ICT) and development. The CTO supports the international community’s efforts to bridge the digital divide and promote social and economic development, by delivering to developing countries unique knowledge-sharing programmes in the use of ICTs in the specific areas of telecommunications, IT, broadcasting and the Internet.

Additional Report by SEGUN ORUAME.

 

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