Telecom 99: Building an infrastructure for Africa

NEWS While many companies at the World Telecom 99 conference in Geneva this week focused on technology advances, the need to ensure that some nations are not excluded was also stressed. At the last telecoms extravaganza, four years ago, South African leader Nelson Mandela told delegates that the industry must work hard to eliminate the gap between the information rich and information poor. But, for Africa, that depends heavily on the development of its telecoms infrastructure. The entire continent still has fewer telephone lines than the city of Tokyo. According to Bakary N'jie, chairman of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, a great deal has been done in the last four years - the key development he argues is the privatisation of the telecoms infrastructure. "Privatisation, I think you can say, is playing a big part because there is lack of necessary currency outlay to meet the demand," N'jie said. However, N'jie warned that international operators investing in African telecoms should not only be concerned with International traffic. "What is most important is the domestic network - once that is modernised and expanded it will have a corresponding benefit on the International tariff."