Kathy Gibson at SatCom, Sandton – Reduced connectivity costs are not being passed on to consumers in Africa.
This is the word from Eric Osiakwan, director of the West Africa Backhaul Company (WABco), speaking at this morning’s SatCom conference in Sandton.
One reason is that the investment in terrestrial networks has not been as high as the investment in undersea cables.
In West Africa, Osiakwan says, there haven’t been as many fibre projects as in other parts of the world.
In southern Africa, the opposite has turned into a problem: with operators all deploying their own fibre networks, costs have remained high and so there have been few savings to pass on to customers.
And, although government is best placed to make long-term investments, Osiakwan points out that government is not an ideal partner to have running telecommunications networks.
In term of the consumers’ hunger for bandwidth, Osiakwan is cautious about pinning hopes on any particular technology.
“Consumers just want broadband,” he says. “As long as it is affordable and available, the consumer doesn’t really care how it gets to him.”
WiFi is often underestimated, but has shown popularity and longevity, largely because it is available by default on most devices. If LTE becomes more available on devices, it will almost inevitably become pervasive in the network as well, Osiakwan points out.
