Africa - Telecommunications Market Analysis - 2004

Synopsis

Despite some remarkable changes in Africa’s telecom market over the past few years, overall teledensities remain extremely low, with the rollout of fixed lines by incumbent operators barely inching forward in most countries, while the uptake of mobile telephony moves rapidly past it. The convergence of fixed and mobile networks and services will continue to dominate the market with future licensees gaining combination licences with the ability to operate both a wired and wireless systems. Overall growth in Internet penetration is slower than world averages and is less than half the growth rate of mobile.