Africa raising its game in telecoms: it is often said that Africa's information and telecommunication technology is poor compared to the global growth in technology. But as Regina Jere-Malanda finds out, Africa is fighting the "divide" to the hilt and is winning.

No doubt, information and telecommunication technologies are as central to the development agendas of a country as they are critical in facilitating socio-economic development.

The general consensus emphasises how countries particularly in East and Southern Africa lack direct terrestrial access to the global information and communications infrastructure, and are forced to rely on expensive satellite connectivity to link up with each other and the rest of the world.

In a document released in April, Missing link, the World Banks Global Information and Communication Technologies Department (GICT) decries how sub-Saharan Africa accounts for less than 1% of the world's international bandwidth capacity. In practice, this means that making an international phone call or connecting to high-speed internet is beyond the reach of the majority of people in many African countries.

The GICT, which promotes access to information and communication technologies in developing countries, believes that Africa's lack of connectivity is partly because the region is not connected to the global optical fibre broadband infrastructure.

Relying on satellite connectivity has meant that Africa has some of the highest communications costs in the world. International wholesale bandwidth prices are 20 to 40 times higher in Africa than in the US, and international calls are on average 10 to 20 times higher in Africa than in other developing countries.

Compounding this scenario is Africa's lack of access to low-price and high-quality telecoms services, which impedes regional and international trade and limits the extent of job creation.

The World Bank points out that this limited and costly access also hinders potential to utilise information and communication technologies to extend learning and promote social participation.

The GICT has, therefore, set up the Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Programme (RCIP) to address the "missing link" and to improve access to international connectivity by focusing on closing the terrestrial connectivity gap.

"The programme will extend the geographic reach of broadband networks and contribute to lower prices for international capacity, while contributing to improved government efficiency and transparency through selected e-government applications," says the GICT document.

Kenya, Burundi and Madagascar are involved in the first phase of RCIP, which has a combined volume of $164.5m, out of a $424m envelope for the overall programme. Other eligible countries in East and Southern Africa can join future phases of the programme on a readiness basis.

By the end of the programme, it is expected that all capitals and major cities in East and Southern Africa would be linked to competitively priced high-bandwidth connectivity. Lower prices for international connectivity will reduce the cost of doing business and significantly improve private sector investment opportunities in the region. Universities, schools and hospitals will benefit too; and governments will be able to deliver services to citizens more efficiently and transparently online.

However, even without the RCIP programme, mobile phone coverage in sub-Saharan Africa is growing impressively, up from 20% population coverage in 2000 to over 60% in 2006.

Mobile operators continue to invest substantially in the entire continent. In 2006, for example, the sub-Saharan mobile operators' capital expenditure to sales ratio was above 25%, ranking among the highest globally. Operators in the Middle East and Europe, for example, have a capital expenditure to sales ratio of around 10%.

Given that this investment commitment will continue, many mobile operators expect to reach 90% population coverage by 2010, according to an indepth report published in June by the GSM Association (GSMA), a global trade association representing over 700 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries.

The report shows how mobile phone penetration has increased dramatically in sub-Saharan Africa, up from 1% in 2000 to 18% in 2006, due to the fact that mobile services are becoming more affordable and handset prices are declining rapidly.

Tariffs are also on a downward trend, averaging around $0.23 per minute in sub-Saharan Africa compared to $0.42 in Europe.

The report also reveals that very low pre-pay top-up denominations are making mobile services more available to poorer members of society, and mobile payphones are bringing telecoms services to those that are not directly connected.

Mobile networks are delivering universal access, covering 60% of Africa's population--three times the coverage rate in 2000. By 2010, mobile communications will reach up to 85% of Africans.

In many countries, the past six years has seen the number of mobile phone subscribers overtaking the number of fixed lines. In Kenya, for example, mobile connections now outnumber fixed lines by 18 to 1, and in Tanzania by 32 to 1.

However, despite this seemingly increasing affordability of mobile services, in 2006 some 350 million people in Africa who had access to mobile services, were still not connected.

"One question regarding universal access is whether government policy should be directed more at connecting the 350 million people that already have access but are not connected to mobile services, or creating a universal service fund (USF) via the collection of a percentage of operator revenues that seeks to extend access in underserved areas," suggests the GSMA report.

On the other hand, Eastern, Central and Southern African countries are also the focus of several new projects to lay fibre optic cables beneath the Indian Ocean, which could put an end to the expensive, low-quality phone and internet services. This could also be the demise of static and crackling long-distance calls and slow dial-up internet connections.

Four projects are in the works to link 22 Eastern, Central and Southern African countries to the world's network of submarine cables and 21st century communications.

At the moment, the Indian Ocean's Eastern African seabed is the only one in the world without a submarine fibre optic cable, and hence the regions reliance on limited and expensive satellite links. This means Africa has some of the highest communications costs in the world.

A 2005 study by a UN task force found that 90% of calls between African countries are routed by satellite through Europe or North America, at a cost of $400m a year. The estimated cost of laying the fibre optic cable, stretching up to 8,000 miles along the Indian Ocean, ranges from $100m to $200m.

Even though fibre optic links would drive down communication costs for businesses and consumers, it also could be a big opportunity for entrepreneurs. Competition among companies rolling out the new cables could drive prices down even further and deliver results faster.

Uganda's Monitor newspaper recently reported that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private lending arm, has endorsed the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) as a feasible and viable development project that merits critical financial support.

EASSy, which involves the laying of the undersea fibre optic cable from South Africa to Sudan, was conceived and is being executed by a consortium of major telecoms companies in the East and Southern Africa region.

The cable will run along the East African coast through the landing points of Mntuzini, Maputo, Toliary, Dar-es-Salaam, Mombasa, Mogadishu and Port Sudan. Once it is finished, hopefully, in two years time, it will have linked all the regional countries to the major global information highways. Joseph Solan of Global Information and Communication Technologies at the IFC, told the Monitor that the potential impact of EASSy on the region's economy was obviously enormous and that was why the IFC decided to offer the project financial support.

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"The EASSy cable will directly and indirectly connect about 20 countries (half of which are landlocked) to the global communication system and the internet," Solan said. "It will support a reduction in end-user prices for modern and high-quality broadband services. It will also boost regional competitiveness and enable Africa to participate more fully in the global information economy, creating conditions for accelerated growth of economies and attracting new enterprises," he added.

Many African countries have also privatised their burgeoning telecoms sectors to attract inflows of foreign capital. To encourage this further, they are also deregulating and opening their markets for equipment manufacturers and service providers.

But a complete realisation of the telecom age to match the Western boom, although achievable, also requires addressing other problems such as access to electricity. In many rural areas in Africa, electricity is unavailable or limited. Therefore, while the telecoms revolution is deservedly due its place on the continent, energy and electrification requirements will also increase and these will require planning and budgeting.

In addition, an effective information and telecoms revolution in Africa will also require a whole range of adequate technical skills and training.

According to the technology magazine, Wired, by and large, telecoms is a success story in Africa and a growing economic phenomenon that sheds light on how emerging technology might spread across Africa in the coming years.

On mobile phones, the magazine says two words have revolutionised their spread and usage in Africa: Community access. Quoting an associate professor in the sociology department at the University of Botswana, Francis Nyamnjoh, the magazine says African cellphone operators are finding they can mine profits from these communal setups and, at the same time, transform telecoms services into mass-market products.

Nyamnjoh says that in many situations it takes a single individual to own a cellphone or computer for whole communities to benefit. "The same creativity displayed in relation to the internet is true of other technologies as well. The latest technology to be domesticated is the cell phone," he says.

Nyamnjoh attributes the explosion of mobile phones usage to the privatisation of telecoms across Africa. This has attracted massive private capital investment in the telecoms industry.

According to Wired, this community access model is also proving to be a rainmaker for cellphone carriers. A recent research by the American financial giant, Merrill Lynch, indicated that the average monthly revenue per cellphone user in Nigeria is much higher than that of South Africa and the US.

Nigeria's economy is six times smaller than that of South Africa and 1,000 times smaller than that of the US. This suggests that the economic and social value of a cellphone in countries like Nigeria is much higher than it is in Western nations.