Namibia’s regulatory halt on Starlink unveils Africa’s diverse landscape. The denial of Starlink’s license by the Communications Regulatory Authority illustrates complex hurdles.
Internet connectivity in West Africa is in a fragile state due to substantial damage to critical undersea cables resulting in limited or non-existent service in regions including Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Benin. The impact is reportedly extreme, with ripple effects reaching as far as South Africa. Telecom giants MTN and Vodafone linked the disruptions to these cable issues.
Airtel Africa is redefining its enterprise, anticipating to leverage Africa’s burgeoning digital sector with the advent of its novel fibre wholesaler, Telesonic. The subsidiary will harness the power of Airtel’s vast terrestrial fibre network, bolstered by the firm’s stake in the pan-African submarine cable, 2Africa.
Millicom, a Luxembourg-based international telecommunications and media company, has announced it has signed agreements to sell its operations in Tanzania and its stake in the AirtelTigo joint venture in Ghana. The concluding deals will complete Millicom’s prolonged plan to leave the African market and focus on its operations in Latin America. Millicom has been operating in the Tanzanian market since 1994 and took ownership of the local operations in 2006. For a while, the company tried to make their shares public, but in the end decided to sell the business in its entirety. The company agreed to sell its Tanzanian business for an undisclosed amount to a consortium led by Axian. In the meantime, the company signed an agreement with its joint venture partner Bharti Airtel on Friday to pass on its AirtelTigo shares to the Ghanaian government for $25 million. Looking at Millicom’s operations in Africa…
One of Africa’s largest economy, if not the largest (an ongoing debate with South Africa), Nigeria’s VoIP sector has seen in increase of subscription over a period of 12 months. With 93% of growth on one year, VoIP went from 46,348 users in May 2017 to reaching 89,447 in April 2018. Out of the two main operators in that segment, Smile Communications is in charge of 93% of the market with 83,445 accounts against 6,032 for its smaller rival, Ntel network. Still, the VoIP technology is a very narrow market on a GSM-dominated market. So far VoIP represents 0.06% of communications when GSM accounts for 99.7%. This is mainly due to a lack of broadband penetration into the country’s infrastructure. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) assured that it expect to increase broadband penetration to 30%, compared to 22% right now, by putting on policies to achieve this goal. Prof. Umar…
Two of the main key players in South African mobile operators, MTN and Vodacom, have shown interest in investing in the Ethiopian company Ethio Telecom. Both companies have invested in many countries on the continent. Ethiopia was not one of them as the government wanted to keep this sector under its control. But their policy is changing and they have decided to consider opening Ethio Telecom’s capital to investors. According to MTN, “Ethiopia presents many exciting telecommunication opportunities and we look forward to further discussions with that nation’s authorities on potential partnerships and opportunities.” and Vodacam stated that it “has said on many occasions that Ethiopia is an attractive market so it follows that there would be interest. Naturally this is dependent on what might become available and if it fits within our investment parameters.” Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopian new Prime Minister, came to power with promises of reforms. This policy…
CTG (China Telecom Global) and Liquid Telecom (a pan-African telecom company) signed a deal to collaborate in the development of network solutions and services. In Johannesburg, Liquid Telecom’s headquarter held the signing ceremony between the Chinese and the African companies. Senior Representatives from China Telecom Donald Tan and Changhai Liu, and Liquid Telecoms CEO Nic Rudnick, and Chief Business Development officer Willem Marais, were present for this event. The two companies will be able to provide to their customers an extended coverage on those two parts of the world. “With more than 50 countries in the region, Africa is nonetheless the booming new market with the highest development rate just after Asia, and a very important market for CTG.” said Changhai Liu. As the Managing Director of China Telecom (Africa and Middle East) he also added, “This collaboration will enable both CTG and Liquid Telecom better serve our customers and…
