MainOne hosts session at International Telecoms Week
MainOne has hosted the Africa Panel Session attended by a mix of Africa’s leading wholesale carriers, mobile network operators and a host of global service providers and content distribution companies at the annual global gathering of telecommunications companies.
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The International Telecoms Week was held in Chicago between May 8 and 11, 2016. It was an occasion for the industry leaders to share perspectives with a global audience on the recent developments in the region, as well as opportunities and challenges being faced across the region towards the wide-spread proliferation of broadband services access.
The gathering also discussed the needed impetus for getting the continent ready for the global information explosion already taking place in selected parts of the continent where Internet consumption by individuals is beginning to compare favourably with consumption patterns in advanced economies.
The focus areas of discussion included the need for the adoption of shared infrastructure models in order to reduce the cost of retail broadband services in comparison to reductions that have taken place in wholesale pricing over the years to within less than five per cent of retail broadband prices.
The expert panel strongly advocated the view that the adoption of new business and regulatory models for shared infrastructure would foster the pervasive digital explosion much needed on the African continent rather than depend on proprietary network infrastructure built by mobile companies with thin pipes to deliver voice services.
Discussants also engaged on the need to support the growth of local content as a means for growing intra-continent traffic and eliminate cross-border barriers to the exchange of information. It was equally stressed that liberalisation would continue to play a major role in the development of internet proliferation in Africa with countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa used as models of advances being made in connecting more people on the continent.
Speakers at the event included executives from a diverse set of players including MainOne, Google, PCCW Global, WIOCC and Liquid Telecom, with an in-depth analyst presentation reviewing developments on the continent by Russell Southwood of Balancing Act Africa.
Various participants highlighted infrastructure deployments such as MainOne’s metro fibre builds in Lagos, Nigeria; Liquid Telecom’s fiber backhaul across East and Southern Africa and Google’s fibre last mile projects in Uganda and Ghana to demonstrate what can be achieved with the availability of shared infrastructure offering uncapped and reliable bandwidth services.
