Category: Telecom Policy
Telecommunications and access issues.
A Game of Stones
In 2019, the World Bank estimated that it would cost US $100 billion to achieve broadband access for all in Africa. While efforts to understand the cost of connectivity investment are noble, they have the unfortunate side effect of making...
Africa Telecoms Infrastructure in 2021
Welcome to the 8th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. It is hard to believe that another year in which most of us have operated remotely, spending large parts of our days in front of our web cameras....
A Penny Black Broadband Strategy
The challenge of unlocking affordable access to backhaul networks for small operators, especially in rural areas, is a problem that has been bothering me for years. As demand for high-speed access grows and last-mile access technologies grow increasingly affordable, the...
Africa Telecoms Infrastructure in 2020
Welcome to the 7th annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. Thanks to COVID-19, 2020 has been a year that no one on the planet will forget. It is also a year in which we came face-to-face with the...
The 5G Fugazi
Mobile phones and mobile networks are a modern technological miracle that have transformed telecommunications. This is a non-controversial statement. In economically poor countries, mobile phones have effectively replaced legacy copper infrastructure to become the default national telephone network infrastructure. In...