1. Terrestrial Transmission Networks in Africa
Terrestrial Connectivity: Ensuring land-locked countries and rural areas can benefit from increased capacity
Capacity & Wholesale Africa,
CTICC, Cape Town 10 November 2010.
Paul Hamilton, Director.
Hamilton Research Ltd.,
Bath Brewery, Toll Bridge Road,
Bath BA1 7DE, UK
Tel: +44 (0)
Fax: +44 (0)

2. About us
Hamilton Research is a specialist provider of research, analysis and GIS cartographic services for telecom markets, and maintains a quarterly updated database of Africa’s transmission networks.
We recently published the 2010 edition of the Africa Telecom Transmission Map and Datasets, showing the region’s terrestrial fibre and microwave, satellite and submarine cable networks as at July 2010.
Hamilton Research undertakes customised research and consulting projects for a range of clients, with projects ranging from the research and production of maps-to-order, demand and feasibility studies, to the development of market metrics.
Paul Hamilton, Director.
Hamilton Research Ltd.,
Bath Brewery, Toll Bridge Road,
Bath BA1 7DE, UK
Tel: +44 (0)
Fax: +44 (0)

3. Terrestrial Transmission Networks in Africa
Terrestrial Connectivity: Ensuring land-locked countries and rural areas can benefit from increased capacity
Inventory
Reach
Capacity
Investment

5. Inventory How much terrestrial transmission network is there?
585,471-kms of terrestrial transmission network by July 2010.
Laid end-to-end, that is enough to wrap around the earth 14.6 times.
465,659-kms in July 2009, a 26% increase in one year.
In 1987, there was ~ 74,000-kms of microwave network.

6. Inventory How much terrestrial transmission network is there?
Total length of operational network (rather than under construction, planned or proposed): 411,686-kms
This was an increase of 57,560-kms compared to July 2009.
Laid end-to-end, that is enough to wrap around the earth 1.5 times.
In addition, a further 44,651-km was under deployment, at least 5, kms of which entered service during the third quarter.

7. Reach How many people are within reach of terrestrial networks?
Satellite reaches 100% of the population. However, the proportion which can only be reached by satellite decreased from over 80% ten years ago to less than 20%.
Mobile operators have deployed by far the most extensive microwave networks (and increasingly building their own fibre networks).
Fibre ‘reach’ increases from 15.6% to % of population after network is built and wireless broadband access networks with greater ranges are deployed.

8. Reach How many people are within reach of terrestrial networks?
Satellite reaches 100% of the population. However, the proportion which can only be reached by satellite decreased from over 80% ten years ago to less than 20%.
Mobile operators have deployed by far the most extensive microwave networks (and increasingly building their own fibre networks).
Fibre ‘reach’ increases from 15.6% to % of population after network is built and wireless broadband access networks with greater ranges are deployed.
10-km 25-km km
ADSL
iBurst
WiMAX

9. Reach How many people are within reach of terrestrial networks?
The 2010 Transmission Map contains over 3,000 fibre nodes. In the Range from Node map layer, we plotted 10-km, 25-km and 50-km radii from these nodes, and calculated the number of people within these ranges.
Population within reach of fibre node (SSA)
Range from Fibre Node 10-km 25-km 50-km
Operational m m m
15.6% 30.8% 47.7%
Under Construction m m m
18.4% 37.2% 57.9%
Planned or Proposed m m m
23.2% 46.1% 69.9%

10. Capacity
How much capacity is being delivered inland, to landlocked countries and rural areas?
Africa’s international bandwidth > 300 Gbps Q1 2010, sub-Saharan Africa > 100 Gbps
Cross-border networks more than doubled to > 10 Gbps by end 2009.
Cross-border: STM-1s becoming x STM-1, becoming STM-4 and beyond.
Increased supply of international bandwidth bringing wholesale pricing down, as this lowers retail tariffs for fixed broadband and 3G is driving subscriber growth.

11. Investment
How much more is needed, and what is the investment necessary to achieve this?
Define ‘needed’:
To reach land-locked countries not yet connected to submarine cables
To provide route diversity for landlocked countries
To provide a terrestrial intra- regional backbone
To expand national backbones to reach secondary towns and cities
To reach outlying rural areas

12. Investment
How much more is needed, and what is the investment necessary to achieve this?
Existing network plans show:
45,391-kms of fibre under construction by July 2010.
US$ 1.14 billion
83,406-kms of fibre planned
US$ 1.96 billion
28,629-kms of fibre proposed
US$ 679 million

14. www.africabandwidthmaps.com Paul Hamilton, Director.
Hamilton Research Ltd.,
Bath Brewery, Toll Bridge Road,
Bath BA1 7DE, UK
Tel: +44 (0)
Fax: +44 (0)