Category: Telecom Policy
Telecommunications and access issues.
Why Are African Operators Still Rolling Out 3G Networks in 2017?
I attended the Telecom Infra Project Summit last week in Santa Clara where the OpenCellular Project (yes, a project within a project) announced a new grants program to make their OpenCellular base stations available for testing and piloting to organisations...
Africa Telecoms Infrastructure in 2016
Welcome to the 3rd annual review of telecommunications infrastructure development in Africa. A bit like my taxes this year, this review is coming a bit late but is still relevant, especially in the context of the previous reviews helping to frame...
The Case for Open Data in Telecoms
The landscape of telecommunications is changing. The mobile revolution is maturing and entering a new phase of slower growth. The rapid spread of fibre optic networks is increasing the ability of existing operators to deliver broadband but is also opening up...
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...
The Internet Is U-Shaped
When we think about the problem of achieving affordable access to the Internet for all, the discussion often focuses on broadband targets. These targets are moving goalposts as infrastructure improves. Broadband used to be defined at 256Kbps, now it might be...