Kathy Gibson reports from AfricaCom – Globally, fibre has begun to dominate fixed broadband connectivity, and continues to expand.
This is the word from Dobek Pater, ICT analyst at Africa Analysis, speaking at the Africa Broadband Forum on the sidelines of AfricaCom taking place in Cape Town.
Key drivers behind the growth are an increasing demand for high-speed Internet access, new user broadband experiences like WiFi, and fibre-to-the-room. At the same time, rural and underserved areas are seeing significant broadband expansion.
Globally, FBB penetration has grown from 43% to 62% in the period from 2012 to 2023, while FBB as a percentage of all connections has increased from 18% to 71% in the same period.
“Around the world, governments are putting together strategies for FBB access and gigabit infrastructure,” Pater says. “In Africa, we are also making progress, but it is varied.”
The continent’s leading markets typically have a higher GDP per capita income, have well-developed FBB infrastructure, and see a fair amount of competition and improved efficiency.
This market segment has the largest number of fixed broadband subscriptions in Africa – and the highest household penetration.
Household fixed broadband penetration in Leading Markets is expected to increase from 41,5% in 2023 to 52,4% in 2030, a CAGR of 3,4%. Total fixed broadband subscriptions are expected to increase from 24,1-million to 36,2-million in 2030, a CAGR of 5,3%. The growth in fixed broadband subscriptions, as well as fixed broadband penetration, is expected to slow down between 2023 and 2030. Operators will need to put strategies in place to ensure the growth maintains its pace.
DSL access technologies continue to have a presence in some of the Leading Markets – mainly in Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia. Fibre is the dominant access technology in Mauritius, while FWA and fibre dominate in South Africa.
Mobile broadband penetration is also high in the Leading Markets, with mobile subscriptions exceeding the total population in both the Seychelles and in South Africa.
However, the reality is that most of the continent hasn’t achieved this much, despite the benefits that FBB can bring. Pater shares that every $300-million in FBB infrastructure can expect to see a multiplier effect of 2,2, having a direct effect on the economy.
And it’s not only the ICT sector that benefits: there are knock-on benefits to services and trade, industry and construction, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, and other sectors.
“The sooner we start the cycle of investment and support of BB development, the more we will realise the benefits,” Pater says. “It’s clear that FBB investments can have a massive positive impact on social and economic development.”
The developing markets segment consists of African countries mainly within the $2 000 to $4 000 GDP per capita range and include Morocco, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cape Verde, and Zimbabwe.
These countries are often characterised by high Internet penetration through mobile Internet access and have initiated fixed broadband development programmes to enhance digital infrastructure through first initiatives.
Continued efforts are essential to further enhance fixed broadband connectivity and to support economic development.
Renewed investment in fixed broadband infrastructure can result in a high fibre penetration rate in the developing market. Driving fixed broadband costs down and continued government policy support is needed to ensure that fibre broadband’s potential is achieved.
In the Initial Markets of Africa, fixed broadband is still in its emerging stages, but there are significant challenges in setting up FBB operations and market systems quickly – and triggering early market adoption. Most target users are transitioning from mobile broadband, making user experience a critical differentiator.
In some cases, the market is highly segmented, with operators facing stiff competition from local ISPs.
In addition, the initial setup costs for FBB infrastructure are high, which can often be a barrier to rapid development. And the price of FBB packages is usually high and out of reach to the majority of the population.
FBB household penetration in Initial Markets is low compared to other market segments, with FBB household penetration at just 2,4% in 2023.
Even the Leading Markets in Africa are lagging the rest of the world: out of 92 countries, Mauritius comes in at 43 and South Africa at just 28.
“Many countries are improving in fibre development, but a lot more still needs to be done,” Pater says.
As a continent, we are well connected – with 70 submarine cables – but more cross-border connectivity is needed, while key links like east-to-west are still missing. In addition, landlocked countries need lower cost access to international capacity, Pater says.
A technology that has the potential to help plug some gaps is low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and very high throughput satellite, which are now available in South Africa and expanding operations.
“LEO offers good versatile coverage, competitive bandwifth, and good pricing but latency is an issue – and regulation can be challenging,” Pater comments. “So they are probably not going to be a standalone solution.”
The only way Africa will be able to achieve ubiquitous inclusion in the digital society is if governments and operators continue to build out terrestrial infrastructure, Pater adds.
“Governments need to support the deployment of domestic communications like fibre optic infrastructure, while terrestrial network operators need to offer more cost-effective products through higher broadband speeds, more affordable products, and value-added service.”
Among the obstacles that Africa needs to overcome are the slow pace of getting networks built. This includes delays in pre-fibreing regulation, insufficient co-ordination across government departments, fragmented and lengthy application procedures for permission, and difficulties in accessing some areas.
High costs are also prohibitive, with inefficient and costly access to the public infrastructure, insufficient infrastructure sharing, no promotion of aerial fibre as a cheaper solution, and poor maintenance of the fibre infrastructure.
Another issue is low FBB coverage as a result of no co-ordination of national connectivity databases, insufficient access to smart devices, lapsed policy targets, unreliable electricity supply, and concerns around the security of infrastructure deployments.
Low FBB penetration is a function of unaffordability, insufficient digital skills, and a general lack of awareness.
Governments have a big role to play in remediating the situation – and Africa Analysis puts forward a number of recommendations:
- Develop a clear national broadband plan with clear objectives and aligned with other government infrastructure policies and strategies.
- Facilitate rapid deployment of broadband infrastructure through standardisation of rules and processes across different government organisations (for example, to simplify and reduce the cost of granting rights of way).
- Encourage – through policy and regulation – infrastructure sharing between network operators and also operators and utility companies to leverage their passive infrastructure.
- Introduce technology neutrality in the awarding of licences – operational and spectrum – to enable technology choice for infrastructure deployment, particularly in the access network for quicker and lower cost deployments.
- Promote the open access network model through regulation to enable greater competition at the retail layer (ISPs) to reduce broadband service fees and improve quality; greater infrastructure sharing among network operators to expedite deployment; improve redundancy; and lower capex and opex.
- Encourage fibre pre-provisioning through policy and regulation. This could include fibre-to-the-room (FTTR) deployment in new building developments by augmenting national building regulations.
- Establish and enforce a mechanism for GIS broadband network mapping/database development and maintenance to more easily identify gaps in digital infrastructure and drive efficiencies in network deployment.
- Reduce supply-side costs through measures such as lower or no import duties on imported network equipment and software, regulation of cost of access to government infrastructure to lower the network build capex, subsidise the cost of backhaul for (especially smaller) operators providing service in remote/rural areas, incentives or tax breaks for infrastructure deployment and service provision in high-risk/unprofitable areas, or prompt type-approval of network equipment to reduce delays. Some of these measures could be funded out of a universal service fund.
- Reduce demand-side costs through measures such as lower or no taxes and import duties on end-user devices or CPE, subsidies for end user devices or CPE and broadband services for low-income families, institutions of learning, healthcare facilities etc, and incentives to operators and service providers to offer discount on services to public institutions and/or low-income households. A universal service fund could be used for the latter two. The objective would be to encourage greater (sustainable) adoption of broadband services.
- Attract development finance through various means such as policy and regulatory certainty, promotion of open access infrastructure, or the provision of incentives to build digital infrastructure in the form of tax breaks or lower import duties on equipment.
- Implement a “Digital Infrastructure One Stop Shop” – a government body or organisation which would co-ordinate responses from various relevant government entities in respect of applications/plans to build digital infrastructure. This would make the administrative process prior to building significantly more efficient, such as securing of rights of way or electricity supply to key network sites.
- Develop a Critical Infrastructure Protection Plan that facilitates collaboration between network operators, regulatory bodies, and government (including law enforcement agencies) to discourage and penalise broadband infrastructure theft and vandalism – including cyberattacks.