5 November 2018 – Ahead of next week’s AfricaCom conference and exhibition, WTL today launched its annual survey about rural connectivity in Africa.
Conducted every year, WTL’s surveys provide the latest insight and opinions from operators, ISPs, Governments and vendors building networks across rural Africa. This year the survey has been divided so that some of the specific issues facing regulators and policy makers are separately addressed.
People from across the ecosystem with experience and opinions are welcome to share their thoughts at wtl.be/africacom2018-survey and wtl.be/africacom2018-regulator-survey
WTL’s 2017 survey showed that, despite the significant investment in Africa’s telecom infrastructure, the cost of building rural networks combined with low ARPUs and a long ROI continue to be the major barriers to building rural networks.
However, it was clear that people working in rural telephony are looking for new ways to build commercially sustainable networks with 94% saying that every element of a rural network could and should be shared – and that network sharing, spectrum sharing and neutral wholesale players all offer a way to spread the CAPEX costs of rural networks.
WTL continues to champion the National Roaming model across Africa which will increase coverage, improve service levels and encourage competition
National Roaming has two components:
- Building new shared networks in rural areas where there is little or no coverage at the moment. These would be built by a neutral service provider and used by existing operators. Allocating USF money to the CAPEX cost of such networks would reduce the risk.
- Enabling people to use the network of other service providers where their own service provider does not have a network or has limited network coverage. In effect, operators share their infrastructure thus eliminating the need to lay duplicate infrastructures in areas where this is not commercially feasible.
Leigh Smith, MD of WTL, said Our team has been extremely busy this year helping operators of all sizes to build the business case for rural connectivity in rural Africa. It’s clear that the traditional MNO model is not working for rural Africa – and that most people think that network sharing is the way to move forward.
We hope that others working in this market will come forward and share their thoughts in our survey. We will present the results with appropriate commentary and as a call to action to urge greater stakeholder collaboration to help break barriers, extend boundaries and deliver more coverage.
WTL will be exhibiting at AfricaCom again this year on Stand number A44. To arrange a meeting please email rubin.rose@wtl.be
About WTL
Headquartered in Belgium with offices in Nigeria, Brazil and the UK, WTL helps operators in emerging markets to deploy cost-effective, reliable voice and data networks for both rural and urban environments.
WTL has deployments in more than 30 countries in Africa with a well-deserved reputation for excellent service, reliable products and an expert team with extensive experience in Africa.
WTL’s innovative, practical and cost-effective portfolio includes its:
- Vivada (Village Voice and Data) which was specifically developed so that operators, wholesale carriers and ISPs can build low OPEX, low-CAPEX networks in rural areas.
Vivada includes a micro GSM or LTE base station, wifi routers, backhaul optimisation, billing and provisioning software, VoIP compression switches and SMS servers. The entire system runs on less than 200W which can be supplied by solar with battery back-up. Villagers are also able to charge devices such as phones and powerboxes at the Vivada installation.
- Signalling gateways and pre-paid applications for emerging carriers and telecom service operators.
- Award-winning range of high capacity VoIP and hybrid VoIP/TDM switches which have been specifically designed to replace the huge, expensive, maintenance-heavy switches that have traditionally been used to transfer VoIP traffic onto other networks.
For more information visit www.wtl.be or contact WTL’s PR rep on +44 7946 342 903, skype: bridgetfishleigh or bridget@telecomsprafrica.com
