Okoh Aihe
14 May 2008
Lagos — Africa, once regarded as a big headache to the international community is at least getting it right in one sector, becoming the fastest growing mobile market in the world by overtaking Asia and North America.
The mobile figure stands at 300million with Nigeria supporting with a snap-push growth of nearly 50million lines. This is even as ITU officials, regulators and operators expect more to come from this continent where poverty has impacted very negatively on other genres of communications.
Mindful of the encouraging figures coming from Africa, Engr Ernest Ndukwe, boss of the Nigerian regulatory agency, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, speaking at an international forum on Nigeria, recalled that "someone once said that Manhattan in the City of New York in the US has more phones than the whole of Africa put together. But today there are more mobile phones in Africa than the whole of North America."
This is good news for the continent. For one thing the people are able to communicate and the special nature of mobile technology makes it possible for operators to easily deploy in spite of the peculiar circumstances of the continent.
According to a major ITU report just released, "over the past five years, mobile growth has averaged 48 percent, as a wave of market liberalisation has swept the continent, opening four fifths of Africa's cellular market to competition. Uptake of new commerce services is now driving new growth, along with innovative market oriented strategies like micro-payment recharging and single-rate inter-regional roaming."
Nigeria which is enjoying special attention here, having been able to attract most major operators in the mobile sector like MTN, Celtel (Zain) and Etisalat to play in her environment, signposts the quality of such regulation that has put the continent on a mobile fast-drive.
With less tha 500, 000 connected lines, pre GSM era, according to the Minister of State for Information and Communications, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki Nakande, who spoke in Cairo, the country is recording about 45million connected lines.
The picture ahead looks even brighter. The Nigerian government is wooing more investors. The NCC has followed with a promise that it will provide enabling and competitive environment, even while being mindful that quality of service must be adhered to in other to satisfy the yearnings of the subscribers.
And at the exhibition ground here, Etisalat is giving a hint of the kind of competition its coming to Nigeria will stimulate with a massive display that is arguably the biggest attraction here.
Looking at the role Nigeria is playing in the global telecom industry, ITU scribe, Dr Hamadoun Toure told Vanguard that he recently visited Nigeria to see things for himself and was highly encouraged by government's readiness to continue to give the industry priority treatment.
"For an industry to grow, you need political commitment, you need leaders who dare to dream, and these leaders are in Africa today. In addition to dreams you need people with commitment who will make that dream come true. This is represented by the NCC of Nigeria."
If the growth rate is something that people are very ready to talk about and celebrate, the contradictions and fears of the global community concerning the continent are also well embellished in the country's telecom sector whose growth in other genres of communications cannot be said to be encouraging. Fixed penetration is low. Fibre penetration with all the efforts of the mobile operators, who are deploying their own backbone, has not in larger sense, come to the rescue.
In Cairo, Ndukwe pledged that the NCC was prepared to come out with national policies that would encourage easy broadband deployment which will enable communications get to a larger segment of the country's population.
But if the country's regulator plans a forward movement to the broadband era there are still a lot of fears about the rest of the continent where taxes and regulatory costs still impose a lot of nightmare.
Orascom Telecom boss, Naguib Sawiris is suggesting that mobile broadband can break the digital that is so prominent in Africa.
But speaking at the opening ceremony, Toure said ITU has special plans for Africa which explains why it brought the global community to Kigali last year to deliberate on how the continent can use telecommunications to enhance every aspect of human life.
While explaining that a new generation of African leaders is emerging, Toure declared that hope for the continent is yet bright for a continent whose leaders can dream great dreams.
"The enduring mission of ITU is to connect all the world's inhabitants to telecommunications and spread enormous benefits unleashed by the digital revolution. ICT is a great enabler for employment and wealth creation giving people the ability to initiate business and generate revenues," Toure said.
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