Africa - Telecommunications Market, Regulatory and Infrastructure Overview

Synopsis

While being the worlds most rapidly growing market for mobile telephony and also home to the fastest growing fixed telephony markets in the world, Africa still has some of the world’s lowest penetration rates. Foreign investors are scrambling for positions in this very lucrative market as privatisation and liberalisation are progressively being introduced. Explosive growth in the mobile sector has meant that by early 2007 mobile users constituted almost 90% of all African telephone subscribers. Other wireless solutions are also used to serve as substitutes for inadequate fixed-line infrastructure. A surge in demand for Internet access and broadband capabilities is expected to drive these developments further in the coming years. Several international fibre projects currently under development will deliver the necessary bandwidth to Africa and bring down costs. Overall, Africa’s telecoms future looks very promising and offers great opportunities to service providers, equipment vendors and investors.

Table of Contents

1. Synopsis
2. Telecommunications market
- 2.1 Overview of Africa’s telecom market
  - 2.1.1 The wireless explosion
  - 2.1.2 The beginning of a fixed-line renaissance
  - 2.1.3 Internet and broadband market
- 2.2 Foreign investments in telecommunications
  - 2.2.1 The Chinese vendors, Huawei and ZTE
3. Regulatory environment
- 3.1 WTO members
- 3.2 National ICT policies
- 3.3 Regulatory authorities
  - 3.3.1 Regulatory associations
- 3.4 Market liberalisation
  - 3.4.1 Converged licensing regimes
- 3.5 Privatisation
- 3.6 Universal access
4. Telecommunications infrastructure
- 4.1 Overview
- 4.2 Domestic infrastructure
  - 4.2.1 Pan African Telecommunications Network
  - 4.2.2 Comtel
  - 4.2.3 East African Community digital transmission project
  - 4.2.4 Intelecom II
  - 4.2.5 Utilities
  - 4.2.6 Eastern Africa Backhaul System (EABs)
- 4.3 International infrastructure
  - 4.3.1 Satellite networks
  - 4.3.2 Submarine cable networks
5. Related reports