Africa Digital Summit 2013

Inner & Inter Countries Infrastructure in West Africa

Presented by: Robert AOUAD CEO

ISOCEL SA

Main Facts

Between three to five different submarines cables have landed or

are close to do so (Main One, GLO 1, WACS, ACE and SAT3)

Excess of international capacity in all coastal countries

(Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, etc.)

Except large cities, where the submarine cables are landing and some key secondary cities, very

limited bandwidth capacity is available in most areas

Inner and inter countries still lacks for infrastructure in the West African region, especially for the landlocked

countries

Submarine Cables’ Capacity

WACS 5.12TB Main One

1.92TB

ACE 5.12TB

SAT3 0.34TB

GLO 1 2.50TB

15TB

The Challenges

  Regulatory issues on National and Regional levels

  Continuous attempts in some countries to preserve the monopoly on national backbones for declining incumbents

  Other related political and regional governance issues It is always a hard challenge to find the appropriate ways and resources to deliver these capacities inland and to non-coastal countries Landlocked countries and most remote areas in coastal countries are still suffering from lack of reliable bandwidth provided at an affordable price

The role of development cooperation and financial institutions

Initiate and/or support national and regional initiatives that must necessarily be conducted under Public-Private Partnerships In order to be achievable, you need to involve the Public sector while the Private sector role is to ensure the sustainability These institutions should work together and lobby with the Governments to make this type of national and regional infrastructure projects a reality This will also contribute significantly to the development of the countries concerned on the mid and long terms

IF… the regulatory and political environment is suitable

The required financing could be partly available from the operators of submarine cables and Telco groups operating in the region These parties would be interested to participate in the required fundraising to build the terrestrial infrastructure Donors and development cooperation institutions may also jointly fund the states and the private operators

This is a win-win situation for all stakeholders

BUT…development cooperation and financial institutions should avoid transposing a state

monopoly into another type of monopoly

Where the private sector also plays a role, and where the aim is to monopolize bandwidth capacity so discriminatory in excluding alternative operators of small and medium size, which could still encounter the same difficulty getting their bandwidth requirements at acceptable costs This probability was taken into account in the WARCIP (West Africa Regional Communication Infrastructure Program) project, leaded by the World Bank, which was able to provide a fair share of available capacity to all the parties involved in the landing stations of ACE submarine cable in west Africa

Q A & Robert AOUAD CEO ISOCEL SA Web: www.isoceltelecom.com E-Mail: robert@isoceltelecom.com