By Jennigay Coetzer – Business Day, 9 June, 2009

In recent years, the number of mobile network subscribers across Africa has grown at 35% a year, with Nigeria experiencing the largest growth at 58%.
“The fastest growing markets in the region are Nigeria, Kenya and Burundi, which is next to Uganda and Rwanda,” says James Munn, VP for business development at Qualcomm SA.
He says many of the operators up Africa are implementing 3G on their networks to enable them to deliver mobile broadband data services that support internet access.
“The current penetration of internet access in the region is below 4%.”
Regional operators like Zain and MTN are offering various types of data connectivity options for business customers.
This includes bundling services with a laptop and data card and offering bundles of data at fixed prices, and Safaricom has implemented a WiMAX service that provides broadband services at speeds up to 4 megabits per second.
Mobile operators in the region are investing heavily in increasing the capacity of their networks around the cities and are building fibre and wireless infrastructure to connect to the new undersea cables that are under construction.
Projects are also on the go to link up networks between countries to allow landlocked countries to access the undersea cables.
There is a lot of excitement in the region about the undersea cables because they are expected to bring down international bandwidth costs, which are even higher in the rest of Africa than in SA.
Satellite has traditionally played a dominant role in communication in Africa, but cannot handle continuous high volumes of data and is costly.
“Fibre infrastructure is needed in the region for future development because the mobile operators’ transmission networks are currently reliant on satellite,” says Munn.
For example, there are 63 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria, across all networks and this is causing serious communication bottlenecks.
“The operators have to move to fibre to cope with future growth,” he says.
One of the advantages of fibre infrastructure is that it requires less power than satellite.
He says statistics show that every 1% increase in mobile penetration in emerging markets like Africa increases GDP by up to 4.7% and every 1% increase in mobile data penetration increases GDP by up to 10.5%.
The growth in mobile data in Africa will depend heavily on the affordability of internet capable devices.
Munn says Qualcom is developing the Kyak, a small box that will form the basis for devices that can be connected to a standard PC monitor or TV, a keyboard and mouse, can be used to surf the internet, and are expected to cost as little as $100.