Eighty percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s
800 million people should have access to mobile telephones by the end of
the decade, double the current rate, although government help is needed
to reach far-flung areas, industry body group GSMA said Wednesday.
The growth of mobile data – an even more
powerful economic tool than simple voice services – also hinges on
authorities allocating sufficient spectrum, said Mortimer Hope, the
Africa director of GSMA.
“We expect data to keep growing
dramatically, and to facilitate that you need more spectrum to handle
that data growth,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the World
Economic Forum Africa in Cape Town.
To unleash the full potential of mobile
Internet services, he said, governments should also consider cutting
taxes on web-enabled handsets to make them more affordable to consumers
on the poorest continent.
At the moment about 15 percent of Africans have access to the Internet via their mobile phones.
“It’s very early days for data but we
would like it be everywhere you have voice. The extra physical
infrastructure deployment is not as big as you would think.”
Mobile phones have been one of the
factors behind Africa’s recent growth spurt, by freeing people from the
shackles of the continent’s awful landline infrastructure and allowing
them to communicate and transact at minimal personal and financial cost.
The simple SMS – and more recently
mobile social media – have also become powerful political tools, used by
grassroots political movements to mobilize support against oppressive
states, such as happened in the north African ‘Arab Spring’.
Governments across the continent are
aware of the economic potential of mobile telephony but are sometimes
slow to implement the legal frameworks needed to allow phone companies
to expand, Mortimer said.
“Many governments across Africa have
developed broadband plans. The issue is that those plans very often just
sit on a shelf, not being implemented,” he said.
Africa’s biggest mobile phone company is
Johannesburg-based MTN. Other major operators are South Africa’s
Vodacom and France’s Orange.
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