Africa: Demand High; Obstacles Remain

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According to Bachabi, terrestrial wireless broadband and even cell phone service providers are gaining some momentum within Africa, and these applications are using satellites for backhauling. “Intelsat serves more than 60 mobile operators, most of them from Africa. For Africa, based on penetration rates, the deployment of cellular seems to be faster than the deployment of broadband,” he says. “IP technology allows users to suppress packets of data that are useless, such as packets that are transporting silence, and therefore improve link efficiency significantly, up to 50 percent. We observe that African operators are increasingly taking advantage of this new technology to reach out to more remote areas.”
The introduction of IPTV and additional gateways are helping to grow the market, too,” says Southwood. “The number of countries with only one international gateway is considerably reduced. One major market - South Africa - is about to liberalize its international gateway regime shortly,” he says. “Those without a liberalized international gateway regime pay higher prices because the monopoly incumbent has no competition.” South Africa also has opened the gates to 18 new pay-TV operators, he says. “That process will slowly happen across the continent in the coming period. This will inevitably lead to greater broadcast use of satellite, but it will also be in competition with IPTV operators distributing signal using DSL broadband.”
Bachabi sees steady progress throughout the continent, with more than two-thirds of the countries having more than one mobile operator and approximately one-third of all state telcos in Africa having privatized. “More telecommunication sectors are opening up. This trend is continuing, and the regulatory landscape will be improving in many countries in the coming years,” he says.
Most African countries have liberalized their telecommunication sector and have allowed use of satellite for public and private VSAT networks, IP trunking, educational services and voice trunking services, says Schwartz. “Access to satellite is limited in most cases to few players except in Ethiopia, where satellite access remains under the monopoly of the national telecom carrier, the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation,” he says. “In countries such as South Africa, where a limited number of players are allowed to offer satellite services, growth of satellite access has been limited due to the lack of competition and the incumbent operator’s preference for use of terrestrial alternatives.”
Continued growth in the VSAT market depends on deregulation efforts in the various countries, says Koretskaya. “In general, governments are realizing that opening up the regulatory environment allows entrepreneurs to provide more communications which helps the economy and growth of the country. Africa is getting into more competitive markets as opposed to the monopolies that dominated 10 years ago. African governments are slowly recognizing that information tools such as high-speed Internet connectivity are critical to economic success and personal advancement. As information technology plays an increasingly important role in Africans’ economic and social lives, the prospect that some will be left behind in the information age can have serious repercussions,” says Koretskaya.

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