Tag: policy

old tv set on bench in nature

Saving TVWS

How do technologies die? There is no announcement of their demise. Like Homer Simpson, they simply fade back into the bushes. Acronyms like ISDN and WiMAX used to dominate telecoms news headlines but today you would never know they existed....

/ 8 March 2022
African Telecommunications Infastructure 2019

Africa Telecoms Infrastructure in 2019

Welcome to the 6th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. This review combines my analysis of the last 12 months as well as links to over 270 articles covering a range of African telecom infrastructure development issues in...

/ 3 January 2020

Rethinking Affordable Access

Everyone needs affordable access to communication. Affordable access strategies that don’t target everyone end up magnifying the digital divide in a kind of Matthew effect: those with affordable phone/internet services have access to ever increasing education resources, opportunities, services, social...

/ 1 February 2019

The Failure of Spectrum Auctions in Africa

Spectrum auctions are widely regarded as “best practice” in the assignment of wireless frequencies where demand exceed availability yet, as of 2013  among African countries, only Nigeria had successfully conducted a spectrum auction. This is perhaps not surprising as spectrum...

/ 21 April 2017

How to Lower Costs on State-Owned Fibre Networks in Africa

TLDR; Create a vehicle for smaller operators to become part-owners of state-owned fibre backhaul networks “It costs more to get data to the coast than it does to get it the rest of the way to Europe!” Since the arrival...

/ 15 November 2016