Gabon wants to be a player in the digital economy on the African continent and a regional hub hosting enterprises in the sector. The authorities of the middle-income African country have announced this goal in their quest to diversify Gabon’s economy and reduce its dependence on oil.
At the TransformAfrica summit on new technologies held in Kigali, Rwanda, in late 2013, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, declared that Gabon’s connection to the Central African high-speed fiber optic network by 2015 would mark the “first step of a journey toward digital independence.” The president stated, “If we want to change the lives of our citizens, we need to act quickly to make ICTs a top priority.”
According to ARCEP, Gabon’s Postal and Electronic Communications Regulatory Agency, out of a population of 1.6 million, Gabon had only 497,371 Internet subscribers (mobile and fixed) at the end of 2012, and high-speed 3G and 4G mobile connections were not yet available. Thus the country lags far behind its goal to increase Internet speed for the public. Development of high-speed mobile and fixed Internet in Gabon cannot be achieved without fiber optic infrastructure to facilitate high-quality, low-cost transmission of digital applications, services, and content to citizens and businesses across the country.
source: www.worldbank.org
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