African Unification Front
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OVERVIEW OF COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY IN THE AFRICAN UNION
TELEDENSITIES AND COMPUTER NETWORKS
The African Union is still critically short of the basic infrastructure, technology, systems and computer skills required to support electronic commerce and "the new economy".
The AU has the lowest telephone densities in the world, the lowest number of computers and the most expensive telecommunication charges. There are around 3 millin Internet users in Africa with two-thirds of those in South Africa. That works out at about one internet user for every 250 people compared to the world average of one for every 35.
The main impediment is communications infrastructure, which is just not up to speed. Without that, e-commerce can't happen," said Greg Vercellotti, head of Internet services at South Africa's largest IT group Dimension Data.
State telecoms monopolies are part of the problem. Even in South Africa, the African Union's biggest and most dynamic economy, a company with 70 % state ownership, Telkom, enjoys a monopoly over fixed-line services until May 2002. Telkom defends its record, saying it has spent nearly $ 3.5 bn in the past three years modernising and expanding its network.
"The Telkom monopoly is not doing much for growth because bandwidth is expensive and Telkom's investment is more focused on meeting commitments to government," Vercellotti said. With myriad more pressing priorities -- like housing and education -- African governments have put building communications links further down the "to do" list, though they say they recognise the problems.
"The first problem we have is to raise telephone densities which are currently below one for every 100,000 people, and then move on to improving access to computers," said Sizo Mhlanga of Zimbabwe's Posts and Telecommunications Corporation.
In the African Union it remains prohibitively costly to access the Internet. The average cost for using an Internet account for five hours a month in the AU stands at $ 50 compared to about $ 29 for 20 hours in the US.
The AU still has no acceptable Internet-based payment system and regulatory regimes remain restrictive, starving the sector of vital investment. The absence of a sophisticated banking system and the lack of credit cards in many parts of the AU, which would allow for secure payment over the Net, makes e-commerce virtually impossible.
David Meintjes, commercial director of Internet services provider UUNET -- owned by local IT group Datatec and WorldCom of the US, says it is often tough to find technically competent African partners.
Nigeria, the AU's most populous republic, is waking up to the Internet and all but one -- Liberia -- of Africa's 54 territories now has Internet services.
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has generally been marginalised from the telecommunications revolution. Excluding South Africa, in 1996 SSA had about 1,46-million working phone lines serving a population of about 575-million.
Basic telephony provision is still a major need in many parts of the African Union. The situation is worst in rural areas where teledensity is five times lower than in urban areas.
However, the situation is changing rapidly. Speaking at the opening press conference for ITU TELECOM AFRICA in November 2001, the ITU Secretary-General, Yoshio Utsumi, pointed out that at the time of AFRICA TELECOM 98, there were barely 2-million mobile subscribers on the whole African continent. By the end of December 2001, that number was expected to be to 30-million - nearly one and a half times the number of fixed-line subscribers. He announced that the Sub-Saharan African teledensity was no longer trapped below 1 percent - the base level considered essential to economic growth and development.
The fixed-line teledensity grew from 0,9 to 1,2 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2000. High teledensity levels are the best news for strong economic growth in any country.
Progress is also being made in the areas of regulation and competition, with some 36 new operators having launched mobile services in Africa between January 2000 and June 2001. Well over half the states in the African Union now have an independent regulator.
The ITU forecasts that there will be more than 100-million mobile cellular subscribers in the African Union by the year 2005. That means that one in seven people will have a mobile phone. The use of wireless telecommunications -- like satellite or radio -- rather than fixed line, may supersede their use elsewhere in the world.
E-TOUCH
Africa Online, one of Africa's biggest Internet service providers, in August launched an alliance with Britain's Barclays Bank which counts over a mm customers in Africa, aiming to pave the way for Internet banking in Africa. "Our e-touch product seeks to... provide Internet access points in far-flung places across the continent," Africa Online Communications Manager Sam Nganga told. But projects like this are still few and far between, and reach only a minute fraction of AU citizens.
For the time being, Africa's economy has its feet firmly planted in the soil, based on growing crops or digging for minerals and oil. The African Union's share of world trade is miniscule -- less than 2 % -- and analysts fear this will shrink further as the technological revolution leaves Africa behind.
The republics of Ghana, Botswana and Djibouti have 100 per cent digital telephone networks. Africa Online, one of Africa's largest internet service providers (ISPs), took over rival Kenyan provider Net2000 at a cost of KSh23Om ($3.3m). The merger makes Africa Online the largest ISP in Kenya, with a customer base of more than 17,000 active dial-up subscribers. In addition, some 11,500 customers regularly use its E-touch product, a bureau where customers can send mail and access the internet on a pay-per-use basis.
E-touch has been launched in Cote d'Ivoire and Tanzania, and will soon be opened in Zimbabwe and relaunched in Ghana. E-Touch is targeting an estimated market of some 18m-20m users in Africa. London-listed African Lakes took over Africa Online in 1998, and has since put nearly $13m into the business. It plans to open up in six new Sub-Saharan markets by year-end, and is also active in e-commerce.
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