Africa`s slow transition to fibre

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 22 Aug 2006

Africa`s transition from satellite to fibre to carry voice and data traffic is likely to be slow, despite the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) project becoming commercially available in 2008.

Balancing Act`s report, The African Satellite Markets, cites the slow speed of rolling out national telecoms backbones which aim to compete with the incumbents in many African countries, as one of the key reasons for the potentially slow transition to fibre. Another contributing factor is the lack of inter-country fibre links, it says.

"Although both SAT3 and the proposed Eassy cable connect coastal cities, there are relatively few cross-border links in place," says Russell Southwood, CEO of Balancing Act.

Of Africa`s voice and data traffic, 80% is carried by satellite, with the balance of traffic carried by the SAT3, the continent`s only international fibre link, he says.

Southwood says the high price of SAT3 access for landlocked countries with no landing station also has an impact on the rate at which these countries choose to switch to fibre.

For example, SAT3 consortium member Namibia Telecom, which has no landing station, sends 60% of its voice traffic via satellite, as the cost of transiting through SA is more expensive than sending via satellite, he says.

It is believed Eassy access charges for international broadband will give users in SA a much cheaper alternative and drive down what Telkom SA charges, he says. Over three to five years, this will unlock some of the problems in the southern African region. However, it will leave similar problems in West Africa largely unaffected, he says.

Restrictive policies, bureaucracy

Craig Terblanche, business and technology advisor at MarketWorks, says uptake could be slower than 30% in three years, as nothing happens quickly in Africa. "The cost of switching and the lower SAT3 costs have made fibre less compelling," he argues.

Richard Hurst, an analyst with BMI-TechKnowledge, disagrees, saying there will be a rapid uptake of fibre in Africa when it becomes available.

The challenge is the availability of fibre is not as forthcoming as the ICT sector might like, because of restrictive policies in governing access to existing international fibre in many African countries, he says. This forces independent ICT players such as ISPs to seek connectivity via satellite.

Hurst says the satellite service operators clearly see the arrival of fibre as a competitive force eating into their market. However, the arrival of fibre is inevitable and satellite operators will invest in additional capacity through new constellations, increased capacity and the reduction of prices on their networks, he says.

Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a fourfold increase in the level of international Internet bandwidth supplied by satellite over the last four years (from 500Mbps in 2002 to 1.86Gbps in 2006), Balancing Act notes. Growth in the satellite market is likely to continue from non-data sources like TV, while data sources are likely to transition to fibre as availability and pricing allows, Terblanche says.