Diplomatic World_nummer 57

Esther De Valliere
by mobile network operators and internet services providers,
a national fibre backbone, and the country recently gained
access to international submarine fibre optic cables for the
first time when a transit link via neighbouring countries was
completed. SimbaNET (part of Wananchi Group) has been
contracted through funding from World Bank, to build and
operate a fibre-optic cable linking Lilongwe the capital, where
there is a virtual landing point to Tanzania for access to the
sub-marine cables. These developments provide tremendous
opportunities for UltiNetS in terms of accessibility of
wholesale price and reliable international bandwidth
resulting in low consumer cost.
As a landlocked and densely populated country that suffers
from widespread poverty, Malawi has one of the lowest rates
of internet access in the world. Currently internet penetration
in Malawi is at 6.8% against a mobile SIM penetration of 40%
of the population with mostly the rural communities heavily
underserved. However, the regulator has recently established
a Universal Service Fund (USF) in an effort to accelerate
internet and mobile services penetration in the rural areas.
Malawi has a high demand for high speed internet in terms of
multimedia applications especially in rural areas where fixed
broadband connectivity is very limited or non-existent. While
currently internet penetration is still very low there is still
potential for growth beyond the current 6.8% based on linearly
projected growth. The broadband internet market is very
competitive in the urban areas compared to rural areas with
almost five major broadband wireless access service providers.
Quality of service (QoS) is very poor which results in
extremely substandard quality of user experience (QoE) with
lack of enforceable service level agreements (SLA). UltiNetS
passionately believes with advanced development of wireless
access technologies, harmonisation of legislative pieces and
consolidation of global efforts to connect the unconnected at
lower tariffs is achievable and should be a human right.
TV WHITE SPACE NETWORK
One reason that discourages broadband service deployment
in rural areas is the cost of recovery on investment.
Basically, many operators do not see any business sense in
the rural areas. Such an initial investment cost is largely
the cost on base transceiver station (BTS) equipment and
the associated client premise equipment (CPE) in the case
of fixed broadband wireless service. However, following
a global coordinated move for Digital Switchover (DSO)
by discontinuing analogue TV transmission, the world was
presented with a Digital Dividend offering real opportunities
for wireless innovation. One such innovation opportunity
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