Wireless for Africa
Winston Smith, MD, Alvarion SA says that with its sub six percent internet penetration Africa remains firmly trapped in this chasm.
Telecom services uptake throughout Africa is low compared to other developing countries and the rest of the world despite a mobile penetration rate of more than 100 percent. Smith says wireless is necessary in Africa as a result.
“To successfully roll out new infrastructure or upgrade very old systems in terms of wired technologies wireless is essential.”
Smith says that there is hope for Africa and its wireless broadband penetration. “Africa is the fastest growing region with the number of subscribers expected to increase to 19 million by 2014 (compared to 5.2 million in 2008).”
He ascribes this growth rate to the ever changing environment. There are several new and different types of operators and content players entering the market, in addition networks have evolved with convergence to all-IP.
Smith says it is ultimately the customer that is driving the change with increasing demand for high bandwidth services and a desire for “Always on and with me” availability.
“As a result there are also several new devices, new applications and usage models being launched from data-centric to consumer electronics devices.”
He says that aside from a myriad of infrastructure benefits, Africa needs wireless broadband because the internet is becoming more complex with rich multi-media.
“The average web page size has tripled in the past five years. There has also been a marked increase in HTTP requests for images, 75 percent up from 20 percent in 2003. In addition, 95% of web pages today have images.”
Video and HD are also here with the average file size being 10 Mbytes. Smith says video accounts for 80 percent of all bytes transferred.
“Videos are also growing in size and length; 90 percent of videos are three minutes up from under one minute in 1997.”
This evolution equals unprecedented opportunity according to Smith. He says there is a window of opportunity in both the business and high-end residential customer sectors with the mass market evolving as economies of scale drive pricing down.
“Wireless technologies will capture a significant portion of the broadband opportunities especially in sub-Saharan Africa. There are also major opportunities for greenfield operators.”
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