WORLDWIDE MARKET RESEARCH REPORT - CISE

EC/IST FP6 Project No 026920
Work Package: 6
Type of document: Report
Date: 20.12.2007
File name: OP_WP6_D37_V1.0.doc Version: 1.0
Title: Worldwide Market Research Report 202 / 356
The shortage of the network infrastructure besides, increase even more the prices:
bandwidth costs of access to the international internet backbone via VSAT, for example, are
almost 30 times the cost in more industrialized countries.
Overall therefore, large numbers of people, around 80% of the population who do not own
phones of any kind, remain highly dependent on public access telephones (very sporadic
too). Additionally, while there is considerable overlap between those that have fixed phones,
mobile phones and internet access, there appears to be a growing number of mobile phone
users who have substituted their mobile phones for fixed telephones, largely due to
convenience and flexibility, but also in some instances due to high fixed line rentals, usage
charges or flawed billing. Of concern is the near absence of internet in many African
countries. Outside South Africa, the incidence of home PCs is negligible and the only access
is largely through work and internet cafés, though in both cases the access is limited and the
findings seem to suggest that it is the same people that have work access that use cyber
cafés where they are available. The reasons for this are that people who are not using, or
have not used, the internet regard it as unreliable or expensive or both.
It is difficult to make a statistic of the presence of the PLC technology in Africa, which stays
for now, limited to few cases: in South Africa, in Ghana and in Egypt.
5.4.2 Regulatory Situation (PLC Networks and Equipment)
[A04] The African telecommunications sector is continuing to show a more liberal policy to
attract foreign investment and to improve its infrastructure and services. This trend is
witnessed especially in the increased availability of cellular telephones and is reflected in:
• the increase in the number of countries that have established an independent
regulatory agency
• the increase in partial/full privatization of the telecommunication operator
• the increase in the number of private ISPs and cell-phone operators
The path taken in the liberalization of the telecommunication sector across the continent is
similar:
• separation of the Posts and Telecommunications sectors