Broadband access in Africa crucial for increased innovation

Greater access to broadband would allow for more innovation and increased opportunity for Africa, Tony Dolton, CEO of Unitel in Angola, said.

“With higher speeds and bandwidth and more reliable services, the Mobile Telecoms operators in Africa have the opportunity to reach into the more traditional fixed line services in the Enterprise area and to develop new revenue streams, such as VPN’s or Closed User Groups, as well as M2M, ICT and traditional data services,” Dolton said. “To offer affordable Enterprise services in areas of low fixed coverage should be the objective of all Mobile operators.”

Dolton added that the big impact of the digital transition on the telecoms and media sector is the convergence of content and delivery and the need to be “connected always,” meaning network infrastructure needs more investment and development.  

“In the consumer segment, the Mobile operators still have some way to go to get customers using data and this can be achieved by providing the right pricing, affordable but good quality devices and the content that will drive usage,” Dolton said. “However, to grow this area we must also provide the support to help educate potential customers of the value that data services can bring to their personal and business lives."

Dolton will discuss LTE's impact on the continent in an upcoming AfriCom panel.