In the beginner s mind there are...
Welcome to the 10th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. Ten years is a bit of a milestone and perhaps a period worthy of some reflection, so for each section I ll take a look back to 2014 and see what has changed. I think if anything has characterised 2023, it is the sense
Who could say no to a project that promises internet access for everyone? Starlink, a global Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, has dominated the press this year with announcements of their service availability in a range of African countries. The news has largely been jubilant. Finally, broadband for all. It sounds like the perfect
In 2019, the World Bank estimated that it would cost US $100 billion to achieve broadband access for all in Africa. While efforts to understand the cost of connectivity investment are noble, they have the unfortunate side effect of making one think of the challenge as a monolithic problem; that it is simply a question
Welcome to the 9th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. This edition containing links to over 390 articles covering a range of African telecom infrastructure development issues.
How do technologies die? There is no announcement of their demise. Like Homer Simpson, they simply fade back into the bushes. Acronyms like ISDN and WiMAX used to dominate telecoms news headlines but today you would never know they existed. Billions of dollars have been spent on technologies that never quite fulfilled their promise. There
Welcome to the 8th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. It is hard to believe that another year in which most of us have operated remotely, spending large parts of our days in front of our web cameras. This is my summary of the highlights telecom infrastructure development in 2021 as well as
The challenge of unlocking affordable access to backhaul networks for small operators, especially in rural areas, is a problem that has been bothering me for years. As demand for high-speed access grows and last-mile access technologies grow increasingly affordable, the cost of connecting a network to the global internet is rapidly becoming the single biggest
Welcome to the 7th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. Thanks to COVID-19, 2020 has been a year that no one on the planet will forget. It is also a year in which we came face-to-face with the critical role that telecommunications plays in enabling our economies to function, our students to learn,