Season's Greetings From Balancing Act's News Update

The pace of change in the telecoms and internet sectors in Africa in 2013 has seemed to accelerate. The established and accepted ways of doing things are being challenged on all sides by both global trends and by things that are particular to Africa.

Infrastructure plans continue to fall into place. Liquid Telecom looks close to realizing the imperial fantasy of Rhodes by having a fibre route from the Cape to Cairo. Google has built a metronet in Kampala as a way of accelerating market development and looks set to roll out more. Somalia will shortly be connected to international fibre. Fibre to the home or whatever implementations are growing in number: Telkom South Africa has graciously signaled it will join the party, late as ever. Soon as one senior executive told us, the experience for corporate customers in most African capitals will be almost the same as in Europe of the USA. In the meantime, vandalism and power cuts bedevil the progress made.

There is a very real danger that as the digital divide begins to be closed that it will turn into a power divide. There are many efforts at the level of the base station and small-scale local delivery but none of the policy dynamism that has driven the telecoms and Internet sectors in the best performing countries. Many Governments seem to have a rhetoric about joining the Information Society but lack the political will to solve the energy requirements to deliver it. A recent workshop of 42 African countries convened by the African Development Bank for an initiative called Sustainable Energy for All in Africa may be a good thing but we want to see what it's actually going to deliver on the ground.

source: www.allafrica.com

Liquid telecom scoops best African wholesale carrier award

It is the second year in succession Liquid Telecom has won the gong, beating off strong competition from WIOCC, Orange and PCCW Global.

According to the panel of judges: “Liquid Telecom has again shown great promise and ambitious plans for development in Africa. It has aggressively targeted expansion of its fibre footprint in the continent and is attempting to access a range of countries where infrastructure maintenance remains the most challenging in the world.”

The judges said Liquid Telecom’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy was a significant highlight to the company being recognised, with the firm having acquired four companies in 2013.

They also said the company commitment to serving the region’s communications sector was a key highlight, where Liquid Telecom has been diverting traffic as a result of multiple cuts to undersea cables to enable redundancy on a number of routes from Africa to Europe.

Nic Rudnick, Liquid Telecom’s chief executive officer (CEO), said: “At Liquid Telecom we celebrate the people who make it happen. This award is a real team effort and recognises our company’s drive and ambition to provide internet connectivity across the whole of Africa”.

It is the second week in a row Liquid Telecom has been recognised after it bagged Best Connectivity Solution in Africa at last week’s AfricaCom 2013, in Cape Town, for building the longest fibre links in Africa.

Organised by Capacity Magazine and now in its eighth year, the Global Carrier Awards have become the biggest and most prestigious awards event of the wholesale telecoms calendar.

HumanIPO reported last week Liquid Telecom had built the first fibre optic cable into Somalia, connecting the country to undersea cables by fibre for the first time.

“We are providing the people of Somalia with access to the global internet at higher speeds and with more capacity than ever before,” said Rudnick.

source: www.humanipo.com

liquid telecom goes local

Liquid Telecom, a Mauritius-based group, has built Africa's largest fibreoptic network stretching 15,000km across Southern, Eastern and Central Africa, and is now shifting its strategy towards linking homes and businesses to broad-band networks.

Nic Rudnick, chief executive of Liquid Telecom, says the company's main focus will be on access networks, such as fibre rings, that mobile operators can use to support the rollout of high-speed LTE broadband, and fibre links to homes and businesses.

Liquid Telecom plans to spend at least $250m in the next five years on this fibre rollout.

In Europe, Rudnick says the bulk of data is accessed using fixed-line internet connections, and "we don't believe Africa is any different."

While he admits internet usage will be driven by wireless devices, Rudnick says segments of the market that are particularly data hungry "need and want services with a greater throughput than you can experience using most wireless technology".

However, Rudnick says Liquid Telecom is still looking to expand its fibre network and is assessing greenfield projects and acquisitions in four African countries.

In September, Liquid Telecom integrated Kenya Data Networks into the group after buying a 61% stake in the loss-making company from South Africa's Altech Group.

Altech in turn took an 8.6% shareholding in Liquid Telecom. The largest shareholder remains Zimbabwean telecoms entrepreneur Strive Masiyiwa, through his South Africa-based
group Econet Wireless.

In September, the group launched East Africa's largest data centre, with 2,000m2 of carrier-neutral rack space in Nairobi.

"As we are rolling out our fibre connectivity solutions, the amount of data that has been carried across the region is obviously increasing exponentially," says Rudnick.

"We want to have as much of that data and processing capability as we can locally." Plans are already underway to build smaller data centres elsewhere in the region.

source: www.theafricareport.com

liquid Telecom scoops Best African Wholescale carrier award

Liquid Telecom has been named the Best African Wholesale Carrier for the second time at the Global Carrier Awards.

It is the second year in succession Liquid Telecom has won the gong, beating off strong competition from WIOCC, Orange and PCCW Global.

According to the panel of judges: “Liquid Telecom has again shown great promise and ambitious plans for development in Africa. It has aggressively targeted expansion of its fibre footprint in the continent and is attempting to access a range of countries where infrastructure maintenance remains the most challenging in the world.”

The judges said Liquid Telecom’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy was a significant highlight to the company being recognised, with the firm having acquired four companies in 2013.

They also said the company commitment to serving the region’s communications sector was a key highlight, where Liquid Telecom has been diverting traffic as a result of multiple cuts to undersea cables to enable redundancy on a number of routes from Africa to Europe.

Nic Rudnick, Liquid Telecom’s chief executive officer (CEO), said: “At Liquid Telecom we celebrate the people who make it happen. This award is a real team effort and recognises our company’s drive and ambition to provide internet connectivity across the whole of Africa”.

It is the second week in a row Liquid Telecom has been recognised after it bagged Best Connectivity Solution in Africa at last week’s AfricaCom 2013, in Cape Town, for building the longest fibre links in Africa.

Organised by Capacity Magazine and now in its eighth year, the Global Carrier Awards have become the biggest and most prestigious awards event of the wholesale telecoms calendar.

HumanIPO reported  last week Liquid Telecom had built the first fibre optic cable into Somalia, connecting the country to undersea cables by fibre for the first time.

source: www.humanipo.com