Mobile music blooms in Africa
The largest of the current online platforms, both on mobile and PC, is iRoking - part of iRoko Partners, which also runs a Nollywood film platform in parallel. It received investment from US private...
View ArticleAfrican ISPs steal march on LTE
YooMe is a privately held Swiss company that has two African Internet service provider (ISP) businesses, one in Cameroon and the other to open soon in Côte d’Ivoire. Its CEO, Dov Bar Gera, has set up...
View ArticleCameroon shows Africa how not to do it
Cameroon’s government is hanging on to its monopoly state telecommunications provider, Camtel, and the result is that the country now has some of the highest international and national wholesale fibre...
View ArticleWe name Africa’s telecoms delinquents
A decade ago, fierce battles were fought to get a number of Africa’s state-owned telecommunications operators into private hands and to strip them of their monopoly privileges. This happened in all but...
View ArticleChallengers may own Africa’s Internet future
For more than a year, I have been saying to anyone that will listen that long-term evolution and video will be a game changer in Africa. The logic for arguing this case was based on the fact that...
View ArticleHome fibre in SA: what’s the hold-up?
Jamii Telecom launched a public fibre-to-the-home network in Kenya in early 2011, but except for a few gated communities and pilots, nothing has happened in South Africa on this front. However, 2014...
View ArticleHow to turbo-charge Africa’s Internet
One day, everything will be data. Voice will not exist as a separate service needing different technology. The transition in developed countries has been relatively slow. However, at the international...
View ArticleCameroon’s broadband dead end
Cameroon has offered mobile operator Viettel a year’s monopoly on the operation of the country’s first 3G network. But Viettel is no ordinary operator. It’s owned by the Vietnamese government and...
View ArticleBattle lines drawn over white spaces
SpectraLink Wireless, with help from Facebook and Microsoft, has rolled out broadband coverage using television white spaces (TVWS) across campuses at All Nations University College and Koforidua...
View ArticleGoing where others fear to tread
In the main, Africa’s universal service agencies have not covered themselves in glory. Although money has been collected from operators, it has largely sat in the bank gathering interest. Even in...
View ArticleMobile VOD in Africa on cusp of boom
Balancing Act Africa research counts 73 video-on-demand platforms operating in Africa -- on the Internet, via satellite or through mobile applications. Mostly, these are “over the top” services with...
View ArticleConsumers break SA’s home fibre logjam
South Africa’s stately progress towards implementing fibre to the home (FTTH) has taken a turn for the better after two residents’ associations took matters into their own hands. One, Parkhurst in...
View ArticleIn Africa, ISPs fill the broadband gap
A new Internet service in the remote north of Uganda and the roll-out of 4G in Ghana -- neither involved a traditional mobile operator but both have set the new pattern for Africa’s new broadband...
View ArticleInside Medallion, Nigeria’s Teraco
Liberalised markets create competition, and that means more operators. But the growing array of these voice and data providers can’t operate in isolation: they have to connect to each other. In...
View ArticleE-commerce takes root in Nigeria
Early e-commerce market entrant in Nigeria, Naspers’s Kalahari.com, came and went, with many suggesting it was inevitable given that the number of online customers was tiny. But Rocket Internet...
View ArticleAfrica’s MNOs are dazed and confused
The business logic is clear; only the timing remains to be settled. Everything in telecommunications, including voice, will soon be data. In a world where everything is data, there will be two types of...
View ArticleCheap mobile data for Africa? Here’s how
Africa’s network operators need to make a New Year’s resolution that they will work to make their data cheaper for their users and improve the quality of their networks. Data creates significant...
View ArticleWhy francophone Africa lags in start-ups
In the past three months, I’ve visited three francophone countries -- Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Mali -- and talked to those involved in the start-up ecosystem in each country. The most developed of
View ArticleUgly war looming over OTTs
The recent decision by all three telecommunications operators in Morocco to block voice-over-Internet protocol and other IP-based services is the first shot in what is going to
View ArticleNew subsea cables to drive down prices
Not a week goes by without a new round of 4G/LTE roll-out announcements. This week it was Glo expanding its reach in Nigeria and Zantel providing mainland coverage in Tanzania. The supply side for...
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