African bandwidth opportunities ‘endless’
INTERNET
By BiztechAfrica - July 18, 2012, 12:43 p.m.
Opportunities for bandwidth providers in Africa are endless, says SEACOM Head of Business Development Aidan Baigrie.
Baigrie told the IT Infrastructure Africa Summit 2012 in South Africa that African mobile data traffic was growing faster than on any other continent.
He highlighted a forecast by Etforecasts, which said there would be another 120 million internet users in Africa in the next three years. The demand remains huge, and growing, Baigrie said.
This presented endless opportunities for bandwidth providers, he said. “Broadband is to the 21st century what railways were to the 19th century,” Baigrie noted.
However, broadband is part of a complex puzzle, and bandwidth providers do face challenges in Africa, said Baigrie.
Among these are that the value chain to the customer is a long one, and delivering bandwidth is expensive.
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