Africa has the lowest internet usage in the world due to low wages, high subscription costs and a relative lack of infrastructure, but more people are getting online as smartphone prices fall and telecom operators improve their networks.
Internet use in sub-Saharan Africa will rise to 24.7 percent of the population by 2020 from 10.5 percent in 2010, according to Euromonitor International, to be the fastest growing region globally.
Building and maintaining mobile towers in Africa is typically more expensive than in other regions because of high security costs and a shortage of electricity that means towers are often powered by generators, while reaching rural areas can require new roads to be built.
Most African countries also offer only low revenues per user and competition is fierce among multiple operators, so many are increasingly looking at splitting costs, which they can do via bilateral tower-sharing deals. More popular is selling towers to specialist firms such as Eaton, which can then host multiple operators at the same site.
“When we look at a new market we’re really trying to get under the skin of operators’ plans to roll out things like 3G and LTE to provide good data coverage and then understand what’s the likely demand from the end user,” said Harper.
