NETWORK STRATEGIES EMERGING MARKETS: AFRICA FIBRE PLAINS
Africa could fi nally be emerging as a vibrant international services market as operators and governments invest in extensive terrestrial fi bre networks. By Joanne Taaffe
as both they and governments look to connect to new subsea cable capacity coming rapidly onstream. In the more affluent Middle East region, meanwhile, some countries are starting commercial services on more ambitious fibre infra- structure (see box). Hamilton Research says Africa’s terres-
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trial fibre optic networks now reach some 259.3 million people—some 30.8% of the continent’s population—within a 25-kilo- metre range of operational fibre nodes (see table). The research company says once fibre networks currently under construction are completed that will grow to 313.3 million people (37.2% of the population), with other proposed networks taking the number to 388.2 million (46.1% of the population) . “Maybe in the next three to five years
perators are accelerating the rollout of terrestrial fibre networks in sub-Saharan Africa
every primary and secondary city in Africa will have high bandwidth and low cost capacity through fibre optic networks,” says Doyle Gallegos, global practice leader, ICT, at the World Bank. “Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana are moving very, very fast.” Malawi, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Mozambique are also very active, he adds. WIOCC, the largest investor in the
EASSy submarine cable, says Africa is finally emerging as a vibrant interna- tional services market as a result of recent network build. “There is a huge amount of fibre [in Africa], much more than people realize,” says Chris Wood, the CEO of WIOCC. “In Kenya there are four or five major networks. In Mozambique there are 10,000 kilometres of fibre in the ground and in Zimbabwe fibre is under construction. ” Wood says moves to share network build are key. “In Tanzania [several]…
Submarine and terrestrial fi bre network reach, sub-Saharan Africa % Population
Population 10-km 25-km 50-km 10-km Submarine Cable Landing
Point - Operational Submarine Cable Landing
Point - Planned Terrestrial Fibre Node
- Operational Terrestrial Fibre Node
- Under Construction Terrestrial Fibre Node - Planned or Proposed
25-km 50-km 1.8% 4.4% 5.9% 15,228,657 37,435,945 49,784,793 2.5% 5.5% 7.2% 20,776,374 46,625,420 61,250,237 15.6% 30.8% 47.7% 131,230,412 259,327,721 401,057,432 18.4% 37.2% 57.9% 155,168,393 313,280,142 486,944,473 23.2% 46.1% 69.9% 194,941,499 388,137,052 588,314,854 Source: Hamilton Research
Cost (US$ m) Length (km) Capacity
Completion Ownership
Investment in African undersea cables Seacom EASSy 650
265 13,700 10,000 4,500
operators joined together to share ducts and fibre …[and] in Kenya there is a [regu- latory] move to force the sharing of infrastructure.” Submarine cable operators are also
partnering with terrestrial fibre compa- nies to extend network reach. Last month Seacom and fibre network owner Interoute announced a “multi-million euro” agreement to deploy and operate nine land-based Internet access points to connect the Seacom subsea cable to broadband fibre networks in East and South Africa, and Europe. Seacom says it started offering managed IP services to customers from April. Seacom, which completed network
build in 2009 linking Africa to Europe and Asia, last year worked with Interoute to build 11 Internet points of presence in Africa and France. Seacom says prices in some parts of East Africa fell from US$4,000 per megabit to under $500 following the launch of the cable, and the new agreement with Interoute also includes the distribution of services across the two companies’ networks. Wood at WIOCC says in general band-
width costs have yet to be reduced. “Prices are still very high on terrestrial networks. The big issue is quality as there are not enough routes to the coast,” he says. “More than 50% of the cost of getting from Johannesburg to London is the terrestrial piece in South Africa. In Kenya it could be 20% to 25%. In South Africa there is very little competition. In Rwanda it is still probably 40%.” But Wood suggests that will change as
TEAMs WACS MainOne 130
600 14,000 240 7,000
GLO1 800
9,500
ACE 700
14,000
1.28 Tbps 3.84 Tbps 1.28 Tbps 5.12 Tbps 1.92 Tb/s 2.5 Tbps 5.12 Tbps July 2009 July 2010 Sept 2009 Q3 2011 Q2 2010 Q3 2010 Q2 2012
(main investors) companies: telecoms Kenya Vodacom, Dvpt 15% BB Infraco
Investment African TEAMs Telkom, African Globacom 25 telcos (Nigeria), including
US 25% operators 85%, MTN, C&W Bank AFDB Orange, South Africa 50% 90% Etisalat Tata (Neotel), (AFDB) Kenya 25%
Etisalat Source: Steve Song /
manypossibilities.net May 2011
www.totaltele.com
fibre network build accelerates. “A lot of people are building [in South Africa]: Vodacom and MTN; Google is talking about building,” he says. As well as reducing high prices for tele-
coms services in the region, terrestrial fibre networks can underpin education and health services , and many govern- ments are starting to spend on infrastructure to attract private
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