Tuesday, May 31, 2011

East Africa invests a combined US$400m in fibre

Five East African countries will have invested a combined US$400 million in terrestrial fibre optic cables when work is completed on national fibre optic backbones that each is at different stages of building.
When complete, this vast network will carry Internet connectivity from the border with South Sudan in the north to Tanzania’s border with Zambia and Malawi in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west.
The terrestrial link, which is dubbed the East Africa Backhaul System, will then link into the submarine fibre optic cables on the East Africa coast.
This fibre, which covers more than 15,600 kilometres, links the five countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, will create the largest inter-linked region on the continent.
In January, Rwanda completed work on her 2,300km cable at a cost of $60 million. Korea Telecom (KT) undertook the fibre-laying work.
The cable covers the capital Kigali, links to the country’s main border posts with Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and DR Congo.
It also covers all the four provinces, links into the main Police headquarters, universities and other remote government and administrative offices.
Tanzania is continuing with work to lay its more than 10,000 kilometre cable, costing some $170 million. Professor John S. Nkoma, the Director General of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said linking the cable to the main borders with Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi is almost done.
Nkoma was speaking in the Rwandan capital during the 18th Congress of the East Africa Communications Organisation (EACO) – an umbrella body for the telecoms regulators in the region.
Nkoma said private operators in Tanzania have got to pick up the cable to reach those areas that will not have been reached by the national backbone cable.
Phase one of the project covers 7,000 kilometres and the second phase will cover 3,000 kilometres. Like all the others, Nkoma said the Tanzania facility will be deployed by government to promote e-governance, e-health, e-commerce and e- learning.
Burundi is currently laying a 1,300 kilometre cable at a cost of $10.5 million, a grant from the World Bank.
The cable will cover key entry points—two on the Rwandan border and one on the Tanzanian side. The cable will also cover the capital Bujumbura and all the 17 provinces. ZTE of China has been awarded the tender to lay the cable.
Salvator Niyibizi from Burundi’s Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications told the Congress that the first phase is expected to be ready early next year.
The cable is expected to reduce the cost of internet access by more than 70 percent. Today, internet users in Burundi pay the highest for connectivity with operators parting with $3000 megabytes per second per month for bandwidth via satellite.
In Uganda, the government acquired a Chinese loan of about $102 million to lay the 2,100 kilometres plus cable, which has been embroiled in a corruption scandal and is more than 18 months behind schedule.
Patrick Mwesigwa, the acting head of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) told the Congress that is implementing the backbone project in three phases with the first phase already done.
Work on phase two, which link the south of the country to the north is due for completion at the end of this year.
Phase three, which will connect the cable with Rwanda, is expected to begin in the course of the second half of the year.
“By mid-next year, the national backbone should be completed,” Mwesigwa said. He noted that the Ugandan cable has two components—one has linked all government offices and another with spare capacity for the private operators to lease.
The Kenya government is also investing $60 million in a fibre cable of its own. The National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) is being implemented by Chinese firms Huawei, ZTE and a third firm, Sagem.
Unlike the other countries of East Africa, Kenya’s private sector has laid a lot of the fibre optics. Some 5,000 kilometres of fibre had been laid by the private players by June 2010.
The five partner states plan to link their cables in one network to lower the cost of communication by increasing the speed and capacity of internet connectivity.
Telecommunications regulators from these partner states are also pushing for a regional internet exchange point to keep traffic within the region local.

Samsung to invest US$140m in Africa push

Consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung Electronics will invest US$140 million in an African push that is aimed at growing sales revenue, build assembling plants and engineering academies sponsor research projects and fight counterfeits.
George Ferreira, Samsung Africa’s chief operating officer said this investment will further be injected in growing its market share, increase distribution of its products on the continent and engage governments to lower import duty on electronic products.
“Our investments in Africa in the next five years will be approximately $140 million,” Ferreira said in a phone interview following the conclusion of the five-day Samsung Africa Forum 2011 that concluded in Nairobi on Friday.
This year alone, the firm plans to invest another $40 million in Africa, with a target to more than double sales revenue.
“Our plan is to grow approximately 60 percent this year and for the next four years, we should be growing approximately 45 to 55 percent every year,” Ferreira said.
He said that in 2010, the firm’s sales revenue from Africa grew by 31 percent to reach $1.2 billion. The company has set itself a sales target of $10 billion by 2015.
Globally, Samsung Electronics revenue hit $135.8 billion in 2010 with an ambitious vision to reach $400 billion by 2020.
Samsung used the Nairobi forum to display some of its products ranging from mobile devices, laptop computers, digital cameras, internet-connected televisions, refrigerators and washing machines.
Ferreira said Samsung wants to lead the African market by 2015, something that will see the company overtake long standing market leaders like Sony, Nokia and South Korean rival, LG Electronics.
Today, Samsung operates in 42 African countries from a mere 15 in 2009.
With its Africa headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, Samsung has opened regional offices in Nigeria for Western Africa and Kenya for Eastern Africa.
In the mobile handset segment of the market where the company largely rivals Nokia, it claims a market share of about 20 percent with Nokia leading with a share of between 35-37 percent according to Ferreira.
“On mobile handsets, we want to get over 30 percent of market share. This will then put us on a par with Nokia,” he said.
He said Samsung has overtaken Nokia in western Europe in the mobile market and seeks to do the same in Africa.
“To me it’s not whether we will beat Nokia or not. It’s only a matter of time because globally, we are overtaking Nokia,” he said.
In terms of research, Samsung already runs an engineering academy in South Africa and is looking to replicate it elsewhere on the continent with the goal of graduating 10,000 electronics engineers in Africa by 2015.
The Nairobi forum, coming after the very first one last year in Johannesburg served as a platform to demonstrate Samsung’s strategy as well as innovations that the company has to offer.
The forum focused on introducing localized products that cater for the African lifestyle.
Earlier in the week, Samsung Africa president, Kwang Kee Park, said, the company will largely focus on Africa’s top 10 economies, which together generate 79 percent of the continent’s wealth and house almost 47 percent of the population.