OffComm News talks Slumming IT in Africa

Nic Rudnick, CEO, Liquid Telecom 

which has built the largest single fibre network in Africa.

In January 2014, OffComm News visited the Mathare slum, outside the city of Nairobi, Kenya. Mathare is one of the country’s oldest slums with a population of 180,000. Not only does it have its own football team, it’s a pretty well connected sprawl of dwellings. But how is that connectivity managed and who’s enabling this culture? We caught up with Nic Rudnick at Liquid Telecom to get his take on enabling IT in Africa.

What are the challenges with providing broadband outside the main cities in Africa? 

In Africa, about 700 million people out of about 1 billion live outside the urban areas. The dispersion of the population is such that the terrestrial telecommunication infrastructure is, today, only able to get close enough (about 25km) to about 480 million people.

The economics of telecommunication services are based on density of population around focal points (such as a town centre), except for satellite services. This means that a mobile operator will find it extremely difficult to finance a new base station in an area (relatively small around the new site) where an insufficient number of people dwell or are able to reach daily.

Moreover, densely populated town centres that are too far away from the nearest telecommunication node (another base station or a fibre optic cable node) may not be serviced as new backhaul to connect this new node could be uneconomical.

Finally, the population that lives too far (e.g. over 1km) from a focal point, assuming they cannot afford satellite service, may find that the service they receive is of poor quality, due to the weaker wireless signal in their area.

Universal service and access funds have been designed to remedy some of the economic issue. However local governments are still facing great difficulty to make an efficient and effective use of these funds for IT in Africa.
The migration of analogue TV signal to digital will free spectrum in the sub-800GHz bands. The use of this spectrum extends the area around focal points where the signal is good enough for populations to receive a broadband service. However this transition is slow and complicated and the efficient attribution of freed spectrum to operators is another difficult task for telecommunication regulators.

Liquid Telecom will continue to invest in long-haul and cross-border fibre optic infrastructure, as well as WiMAX, LTE and satellite technologies, to help all players in the industry to service the next 500 million African people that live too far away from the nearest fibre node.

With fibre creeping into inland Africa, is satellite on the way out?

Fibre optic networks are being built, for example by pan-African backbone network operator Liquid Telecom, to bring broadband services to as many people in Africa as possible. However it is likely that some areas, given the size of the African continent and the dispersion of the population in rural areas, will remain, for a long time, far away from Liquid Telecom’s fibre infrastructure. Here satellite can fill the gaps. Also satellite continues to play an important role in providing a backup solution.

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Jonah Fink, Senior Vice President of IDT Telecom Solutions talks on key trends and prospects in the African VAS market...

Jonah Fink
Senior Vice President
of IDT Telecom Solutions

Informa Telecoms and Media caught up with Jonah Fink, Senior Vice President of IDT Telecom Solutions, ahead of his presentation at VAS Africa 2014, to find out Jonah’s thoughts on key trends and prospects in the African VAS market...

Com World Series: What business do IDT have in Africa?

Jonah Fink: IDT supports a strong channel partner program in Africa that supports System Integrators, Internet Service Providers and internet-related VARs that sell IDT Hosted and branded Voice over IP Solutions under the IDT Beyond’s portfolio. Services include – call shop, broadband telephony, mobile app and SIP Trunking.

Com World Series: What are the three key challenges for the African Voice Market now?

1. Commerce  2. Awareness  3. Focus

Jonah Fink: As “Cash & Carry” is still the dominant behavior in African consumer commerce, finding key distribution partners with a strong footprint of point of sales is essential.

Awareness of alternate voice solutions is a key ingredient for both the consumer and business client. As Africa may be the leading continent of opportunity, there is so much to do and focus on. IDT is looking to establish partnership whose sole focus is voice and its delivery to their respective markets. Teamwork, Collaboration and Hands on Workshops or seminars can help drive the awareness and necessity of IDT Beyond’s Over the Top Solutions.

Com World Series: How do you see those challenges changing in the next three years?

Jonah Fink: I believe the single remedy to the above stated challenges is internet penetration. As Africa will continue its rapid and robust deployment of Internet around the continent all three of the above stated challenges will be appeased. Internet will start enabling POSA networks around the Horn of Africa to produce real time transactions no matter how the remote a location will be. Internet penetration will allow for real time webinars & “GotoMeetings” hosted by IDT Beyond to attract key decision makers to join and learn about alternative voice solutions for the home, business and enterprise. Thirdly, IDT is prepared, encouraged and motivated to share best practices with African operators to showcase case studies that have yielded mass success to our key partners around the globe. Gaining such awareness and knowledge will drive the Operator’s confidence in regaining the share of the market that belongs at home. 

Com World Series: What makes the African market different from the rest of the world?

Jonah Fink: Its diversity, topology, demographics and culture require IDT to study and learn each country as its own entity. Customization is a key ingredient to IDT’s voice offers. One size does NOT fit all. IDT works intimately with each and every partner on their requirements. IDT listens to the operator’s need for brand awareness, uniformity and seamless integration of IDT’s solutions into their respective portfolios. 

Com World Series: Are OTT operators’ a threat or an opportunity for African Telcos?

Jonah Fink: Cleary, OTT operators such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp are threats against African Telcos revenues. In particular, international long distance is on a decline for most operators in the region. In fact, there are many supportive studies and articles which say that VOIP originated international traffic has surpassed the traditional voice minute in key markets in Africa. At the same time, these applications have created a very strong awareness down to the consumer. As each day goes by, African consumers are embracing new methods of communication. There was an eye opening article published some months back which conducted a survey posing the question: If the local operator would launch its own OTT solution such as Skype in their market, would the consumer continue to purchase from Skype or would they buy directly from their local Operator…. And the overwhelming response to the article was the consumers would buy from their home based operator. Loyalty, nationalism, brand and a single bill rather than a swivel chair approach to another foreign OTT based provider is the appeal.

Com World Series: How can African operators make money from voice when so many calls are free now?

Jonah Fink: The world is all about mobility. Mobile penetration into Africa is going at lightning speeds. As Africa, becomes mobile and customers are taking their lives on the go, off-net traffic is growing. It’s funny, when one thinks about Skype or Viber services, they immediately think about P2P (Peer to Peer free services). It is worthy to note that IDT’s flagship mobile calling solution in the United States just enjoyed its strongest month of March producing tens of millions of dollars in international voice revenue. There is certainly Skype and Viber in the USA… So why is IDT’s retail voice business growing? Isn’t everyone talking for free? Absolutely not! We forget too easily, that particularly in the developing markets, where international voice corridors are so important, consumers are either getting their first mobile phone for the very first time, enjoying new cellular networks which are reaching remote communities for the first time and yes the smartphone is making customers smart. All of these ingredients mean more billable minutes which can go in either of two ways – yours or theirs…

Hear more from Jonah at 14.20 on 24th June, in his presentation at VAS Africa! Download the full agenda here!

Cloud takes Africa by storm...

Increasingly industry commentators are talking about Africa as the perfect market for cloud.... Whereas lack of capacity and unreliable connectivity had previously been seen as detrimental to the launching of cloud services, it now seems that the tide has turned and these characteristics actually make the African markets an ideal Cloud launch pad.

Safaricom launched the ‘’largest native Cloud’’ in the past week, and they intend to lead not only the Kenyan market, but the rest of the continent as well. They’re putting their money where their mouth is and have joined the Cloud Africa conference & exhibition’s Advisory Board. This event is the first of its kind – bringing together the telecom operators and enterprise CIOs, offering the full story around Cloud in Africa.  No other event organisers can offer 19 years of successful learning and networking in Africa – as the Com Series can.  What is more Safaricom’s George Makori, Senior Manager for Cloud and Managed Services is joined on the Advisory Board by other experts and Gurus from Microsoft, HP, Ericsson, Ovum & CxO Advisors, and TM  Analysts.  No other conference and exhibition will bring advice and case studies at this critical point, where Cloud has the potential to take off in Africa./

 www.cloudafricasummit.com