Africa: The current landscape

Africa is a diverse continent not only in its physical landscape, but also its political, economic, social, technological and environmental outlook, with each country and region having its own set of unique challenges and advantages. Neighbouring African countries can be at completely different stages of their technological adoption, economic growth or political stability. It has become imperative for technology providers of all backgrounds to adapt their approach and overall strategy in Africa on a country-by-country basis, bearing in mind that the continent comprises of 54 countries and covers more than 11.7 million square miles.

Across the globe, access to technology and the internet is no longer a luxury only attainable by developed countries. The most recent figures from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the governing body for LTE and 4G standards, showed that global internet access and usage has increased significantly by up to 43% between 2000 and 2015, with Africa alone seeing a 28% increase in internet access. Mobile subscriptions have also risen globally by a staggering 90% thanks to better network coverage and affordability.

Within Africa itself, the changes that have occurred in recent years with the introduction of 3G technology - now being followed by mobile broadband based on LTE - have been monumental. The heightened consumer adoption of mobile devices is due to the lack of adequate fixed infrastructures in the region. This has leveraged broadband wireless technology providers to play a bigger role by relieving the pressure for backhauling data traffic from the mobile operators’ base stations to the rest of their network.

The challenges to bridging the digital divide in Africa with wireless technologies

The use of any wireless technology across Africa is frequently classified as a sensitive matter, and is often seriously hampered by regulatory barriers which have made it difficult for service providers of all types to deploy the latest wireless infrastructures and compete with the incumbent, usually state-owned service providers. However, in recent years Africa has seen the collective efforts of dedicated technology companies, businesses, policy makers and civil societies succeed in harnessing improved outcomes and laying the foundations for social, economic and industrial benefits that the internet can bring to the region.

The year 2015 alone witnessed several significant milestones for internet governance and development across the continent. It marked the end of the Millennium Development Goals, which have now been replaced by Sustainable Development Goals - to help bridge the digital divide across Africa. Its infrastructure and user base is continually increasing and the need to manage and synchronise the development and internet growth is becoming significantly more strategic. There has also been a slight increase in the switch over from legacy analogue platforms to digital ones to ensure faster access and better interoperability between providers.

As a country, Africa’s significant growth spurt in the mobile communications market and internet penetration has largely been attributed to the governments’ efforts to work in partnership with service providers and stakeholders to improve the lives of their citizens, and champion the adoption of modern communication infrastructures across the region.

However, there are still many barriers in the take-up of new technologies across the region that need to be overcome for wireless solutions to be truly adopted. There are many possible ways to ensure successful installation of wireless solutions, whatever the intended application is, but it always invariably depends on the presence of a strong and fair regulatory body.  Airwaves are a scarce resource and they have to be managed properly in order to protect frequency licence owners and ensure the minimum level of disruption to their businesses. Without such a body, the wireless space will quickly become a “radio jungle” with levels of interference that defy physics and operational ambitions of the service providers, in effect resulting in nobody truly benefitting from adopting such technologies.

Adequate funding for entrepreneurs and well-established wireless operators is also lacking in Africa -  and this is key to speeding up the adoption of advanced wireless technologies. This needs a liberalised banking sector, that encourages entrepreneurs and perfectly viable initiatives among the business community, as well as crystal-clear government policies aimed at nurturing the development of its digital state.

Wireless deployment success stories

Despite all these challenges, we have had a number of success stories within the region that have started to shape the wireless market within Africa. One of our most successful opportunities is with a well-established ISP (Internet Service Provider) based in Algeria. This ISP offers connectivity to enterprises such as energy companies, manufacturers, telecoms operators and even education establishments seeking to expand in the region. One of the major issues that the company faced was the very limiting broadband speed of only 52 Mb/s, a result of its legacy base station capabilities and the relentless inhospitable terrain of the desert.  This meant that they could only cater for a handful of customers and those they did connect up to their network could only experience limited broadband speeds.

By bringing in more advanced solutions that were reliable and stable enough even in harsh terrains and climates, and that can extend a wireless signal for more than 100km without the worry of signal degradation, broadband speeds were quadrupled to around 240Mb/s. This stable broadband solution allowed the ISP to focus on their core business and activities knowing their services would be delivered via a reliable infrastructure, significantly increasing their productivity and improving their own customers’ satisfaction and ultimately nurture a thriving economy. The biggest impact was made in the banking sector, where branches connected to the IPS’s network were able to process financial transactions of all types in record times and without the downtime experienced in the past with their previous connections.

Another considerable success to improving lives across Africa, was our work in Cairo, Egypt’s largest commercial hub and the busiest in Northern Africa. The Greater Cairo Metropolitan area makes up a vast majority of business and commercial activity within Egypt, but with that activity also came the rise of traffic congestion and population density. Because of this, longer transit times had adverse effects on business, productivity and planning with employees and workers spending valuable time inefficiently. As the old saying goes – time is money.

Taking advantage of a government incentive to reduce pollution and improve congestion, and working closely with various system integrators in the country, we were able to offer Cairo and its people a modern infrastructure dubbed an ‘Intelligent Traffic System’. This state of the art system was then deployed throughout the entire city in an effort to ease congestion, improve air quality and decrease travel time with an emphasis of increasing productivity through dynamic road traffic monitoring and management. The positive impact of this infrastructure resulted in shorter traffic times and increased productivity for drivers and their respective businesses.

We are also witnessing throughout Africa an increasing demand for homeland security due to various political unrests, acts of terror and the mass migration of communities across borders where job markets in neighbouring countries are seemingly more stable and lucrative. To address to such a need for security, we have further enhanced our existing solutions to carry even more data within the same spectrum, and provide high definition video streams to allow all the usual analytics (e.g. face recognition, ANPR, etc.) to be undertaken by the local and regional law enforcement agencies in a dynamic manner.

Looking to the future

The main factors that drive the adoption of wireless technologies almost everywhere in the world is the increasing demand for smart phones and associated data traffic, as well as the desire for people and enterprises from all market sectors to stay continuously connected. Africa is no different. We expect this trend to continue well into the future, thus creating even more of a need for wireless solutions.

There are a number of vertical markets in which we have seen most recently increased activity and will accelerate in their adoption within Africa. These are the government sectors, service providers such as fixed and mobile operators, energy, transportation and the enterprise market in more general terms. In Africa, the government sector in particular has experienced tremendous growth with projects related to border control and homeland security, and we expect this growth to continue growing for the foreseeable future. We also see huge demand for reliable internet platforms from various types of service providers wishing to replace legacy WiMAX deployments, as well as requirement for high-capacity backhauling solutions from mobile operators. The accelerating migration towards 4G/LTE mobile broadband networks is where most telecom investment in Africa will be made.

As Africa continues to take the necessary steps to building and strengthening its economy via the adoption of modern wireless technology, all the major stakeholders and businesses will continue to play a crucial role in the route Africa is taking to improving its overall economy. The use of mobile devices has increased significantly in the past few years and it is estimated that by the year 2020, there will be more than half a billion new mobile subscribers. Combined with the ever increasing demand for better services, products and way of life, Africa’s shift to higher quality internet access will undoubtedly become a game changing aspect that will impact positively on various aspects from economic activity to homeland security and beyond.