Driving complete coverage
Gabriel Solomon, director of government and regulatory affairs at the GSM Association, says that in countries such as Uganda the government has worked closely with operators to identify areas in which it isn’t economically viable to roll out coverage, and then leveraged government funds to expand reception.
However, advances in ensuring the greatest percentage of the population is covered have been hamstrung by Uganda’s punitive tax regime, with mobile services subject to a tax rate of 33%, making them unaffordable to those people an expanded coverage was meant to help.
Solomon says that coverage and affordability are key to ensuring that all sectors of Africa’s population are able to benefit from the economic benefits that result from better communications.
"We estimate that the mobile industry provides employment for 5,5m people directly and indirectly throughout Africa, driving economic growth in countries that have embraced the technology," Solomon says. That includes the 1m people directly employed by the industry as well as those leveraging the coverage provided.
Solomon says recent research by the GSM Association indicated that there’s a correlation between the number of people who have access to cellphones and an increase in the GDP of developing countries.
The growth of the market in Africa and the still relatively low penetration in most countries on the continent make that one of the industry’s hotspots. With innovative methods of targeting low-income earners being released almost daily, the market is likely to remain vibrant for the foreseeable future.
Finweek
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