Africa well positioned for leap to 4G LTE

With its capacity for innovation, Africa’s mobile network sector is well positioned to drive the explosion in service offerings on the back of 4G LTE implementations.  This is the view of Sherry Zameer, Africa and Middle East Head of telecommunication solutions for Gemalto, world leader in digital security.   Zameer’s comments follow the AfricaCom conference held in Cape Town last week, which was attended by some 8000 delegates from over 100 different countries.

“Africa is largely unrestricted by legacy platforms and onerous regulations, and so has the capacity to leapfrog standard 3G migrations, to embrace LTE and all the benefits of better quality service and content possibilities that the next generation platform provides,” Zameer continued.

While LTE penetration stands at less than 0.003 percent of the market in Africa, Rwanda, for example, is poised to implement LTE from the get go.

“Successful LTE implementations in Africa will depend on how well the issue of spectrum is addressed and how well wireless services (radio) work with LTE to deliver the quality of service required,” Zameer added.

“Africa has a track record of innovation and being first to market in many instances (e.g. M-Pesa and dynamic tariffing) and I expect that the implementation of 4G LTE will be no different,” he said.

While the continent is poised to take telecoms growth to a whole new level, questions among attendees at the conference remain as to how generate profits on new service options, once LTE is deployed

source: www.biztechafrica.com

African telecom landscape looks towards high speeds

number of factors have contributed to Africa’s increasing adoption of mobile phones for internet use over PCs — cost and lack of ethernet infrastructure for two. The cost of computers versus the lower prices of mobile phones in addition to the lack of physical internet cable implementation has spurred the growth of mobile devices in Africa — a trend that is now of global proportion. But Africa’s mobile scene presents unique challenges, and the recently reported interest in the continent’s digital communications from Mideast and European telcos has spun a larger conversation over the future of the continent’s growth.

MidEast telcos have been developing their presence in North Africa for a while. Etisalat — an Emirates-based telco — took over France’s Vivendi’s stake in Maroc Telecom in July, heightening its presence in West Africa. ( Maroc Telecom was also Morocco’s largest operator, according to reports.) And European companies such as Orange have been increasing their investments in various countries to get a foothold in the developing markets. These growing investments from operators have accumulated throughout the year, and made for conversation at AfricaCom 2013 — a telecom conference held in Cape Town, South Africa earlier in November which calls together global technology leaders.

An executive from Gemalto — a digital security company — spoke after the conference and called for operators to take advantage of the unique communications landscape in Africa in order to bypass 3G implementation and escalate quickly to 4G. While attaining high speed wireless seems unlikely in regions that have barely reliable 2G, Sherry Zameer, head of Africa and Middle East telecommunications for the company, described the lack of regulation and restrictive platforms actually make Africa ripe for the buildout of 4G.

source: www.blouinnews.com