CAPE
TOWN -- African governments are stifling telecoms development by failing to
sell more bandwidth to mobile phone operators, a mistake that could undermine
growth in the world's poorest continent.
After an
explosion in the use of mobiles for phone calls, consumers in countries such as
South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are increasingly using them to access the
Internet.
That requires
more spectrum, the range of radio waves set aside for cellular networks. But
many governments in sub-Saharan Africa lack the motivation, know-how and money
needed to auction more bandwidth to meet the demand, industry participants and
analysts say, which bodes ill for economies.
The World Bank
estimates that with every 10-percent growth in broadband penetration, African
economies grow by a corresponding 1.4 percent.
“The
governments do not know how to release it and do not see the importance of
prioritizing the release of spectrum,” said Peter Lyons, a director of spectrum
policy at GSMA, a UK-based mobile industry body.
There is little
fixed-line broadband infrastructure to carry the rising data traffic on the
continent, so the growing demand for Internet connection can only be delivered
through mobile networks. More than half of Internet activity is on handsets.
Mobile data is
expected to grow by 46 percent annually over the next four years, according to
GSMA. It also expects Africa's 35 million 3G connections to grow nearly
fivefold to 160 million by 2016.
“Governments and
regulators are not prepared for the coming growth because they have been
dragging their feet in allocating spectrum to support the mobile data
networks,” said Lyons.
Many
African authorities lack the expertise to run auctions for spectrum licenses.
The few engineers and lawyers that have telecoms experience are already working
for the mobile phone firms and many governments can't afford to hire advisors
from abroad.
Even when they
are in a position to seek outside help, red tape can get in the way. In South
Africa, the continent's most advanced economy, telecoms regulator ICASA has to
get the communications minister's permission to recruit foreign experts. One
such request sat on the desk of successive ministers for years.
The
China Post