BY LAURA GUEVIN
Managing Editor, INTERNET TELEPHONY

Africa: Land Of Networking Opportunity

When I think of Africa, visions of beautiful undeveloped terrain, exotic wildlife, and an unspoiled way of life dance in my head. This vast continent is one of the few places left in the world where development and industry do not necessarily dictate the physical or social landscape. Consequently, it is practically an untouched canvas in terms of its telecommunications infrastructure.

According to commsafrica.com, although Africa is home to some 770 million people, only two percent of the population has fixed phone lines, and 40 percent of telecommunications revenue comes from South Africa. That country has a five percent penetration in the mobile telecom market as well, while the rest of the continent comprises only 0.05 percent. An expanding mobile network as well as the possibilities for a converged voice and data fixed-line network offer amazing revenue opportunities for African service providers, as well as the foreign investors who would contribute to building out this infrastructure.

In response to the huge potential of Africa's telecommunications landscape, the second annual African Telecom Summit was held this week in Accra, Ghana. Participants included major African carriers and service providers, as well as important U.S. and other foreign interests like Alcatel, Hughes Network Systems, iBasis, ITXC, Motorola, and Nortel Networks.

The announcement that drew my attention to this event came from ITXC, whose chairman and CEO Tom Evslin met with the Honorable John Mahama, the minister of communications for Ghana, at the summit. ITXC plans to establish international Internet telephony links in Africa and provide technical support to governments and the private sector in setting up local and international networks. ITXC will retain the right to carry international calls to and from the service providers it works with.

Other service providers and equipment vendors have also caught on to the opportunities in Africa recently, and Access Power, Inc., an Internet telephony service provider, signed an agreement with Worldstar of Ghana to market services throughout Africa using Access Power's technology and networks. ArelNet, Ltd. offers the i-Tone IP telephony gateway solution, and several nodes have already been installed in Africa. And even Compaq announced an increased focus in the South African telecommunications market last month.

"It's interesting to note that South Africa is at the leading edge of communications -- and sometimes the driving edge of new technologies. We are at the forefront of banking as well, and as the two markets converge to exploit the e-business opportunities that lie ahead, technologies such as GPRS, WAP, and UMTS will be pioneering the way," said Allan Johns, telecommunications business development manager at Compaq.

Wireless is certainly a logical infrastructure for a continent as vast and desolate as Africa, and mobile phone use has already surpassed fixed-line use in Uganda and Nigeria. Global System for Mobile (GSM) seems to have the greatest penetration so far, although it only offers coverage for 30 percent of Africa, according to commsafrica.com. While only about 700,000 people outside of South Africa are currently subscribing to GSM service, that figure is expected to jump to 1.5 million by the end of 2000.

Many African countries are being proactive about uniting the continent to attract investment and boost development. Africa Telecom '98, organized by various African Ministers of Communication as well as the International Telecommunications Union, was the catalyst for a strategy that would later be known as The African Connection, with the goal of interconnecting the continent's countries and launching Africa onto the "information superhighway."

A year later, Jay Naidoo, the minister for posts, telecommunications, and broadcasting for South Africa, embarked on an 11-country journey in which his team drove from northern Africa to southern Africa to symbolize the need for an information link. The trip was known as the African Rally. Naidoo is also chairman of the Pan African Telecommunications Union, a committee of communication ministers working to develop the continent's networking infrastructure.

"Africa has a dream of connecting Africa from north to south in a continuous information superhighway, networking with every school, every clinic, and every remote corner of our continent," said Naidoo. "The realization of this dream will catapult us into the 21st century, leading to sustainable development, to the empowerment of our people, and to the freedom that can only come with knowledge and information."

And that means a huge, untapped market for the service providers and equipment manufacturers that will provide the "pavement" for Africa's communications connection.

Laura Guevin welcomes your comments at lguevin@tmcnet.com.