Weekly News

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is from South Africa, where ICASA is holding hearings on the Draft Mobile Broadband Services Regulations. Because South Africa is one of Africa’s most advanced markets, this process is followed closely by most African regulators. In the draft regulations, ICASA finds that MTN and Vodacom are dominant in 3 markets: retail, market for site infrastructure and the market for national roaming. As a result, ICASA is proposing a set of pro-competitive remedies that are essentially demands for data for each of the markets. For example, ICASA wants data on the effective […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is from Telegeography, showing the latest growth in international submarine traffic. One of the main findings is that Africa led the world in Used International Bandwidth growth. Between 2016 and 2020, Africa great at a CAGR of 54%. But the rest of the world wasn’t exactly lagging behind, with the US and Canada growing at just under 50% and Europe at about 45%. The main driver of this growth were content providers such as Amazon, Facebook and Google, who now account for more than 2/3 of international capacity. Even though Content […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is about the next technology frontier: augmented reality (AR). In its second quarter earnings call the 28th of July, Facebook said it was spending billions on AR research and development. Facebook’s idea is to create an immersive virtual world where you can “teleport” into different experiences. Of course, AR comes with a set of challenging regulatory issues. In a recent report, Deloitte highlights some of these, mainly around privacy and copyright. For example, if AR glasses are used as you walk down the street, do individuals have the right to refuse to […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is from Speedtest by Ookla comparing mobile broadband speeds around the world. The latest results are up until the end of  June 2021. For Africa, the results are a mixed bag: the highest scoring African country is South Africa at position 56 out of 137. South Africa lost 3 places compared to the previous month. Another African country worth noting is Uganda, which lost 5 places to position 127 out of 137 countries. For Uganda, this shows another aspect of the higher taxes imposed on the sector: higher taxes means higher […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is from a new report issued by the Internet Society on progress towards the goal of 80% of African internet traffic accessed in Africa by 2020. IXPs generate cost savings by reducing the cost of international connectivity and lowering the latency of internet traffic by up to 98%, improving the user experience. South Africa is the only country to have reached the 80% target, with Kenya and Nigeria close behind at 70%. The common feature of the three countries is that their IXPs have at least 50 members. This is the […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is a follow-up from last week on the tax increases in Kenya and Uganda. Tax increases in both countries were effective from the 1st of July. But the difference is that, in Uganda, the major operators (Airtel and MTN) have absorbed the 12% price increase. Smaller operators, like Smile, initially passed the price increase on, but had to change course and absorb the price increase. In Kenya, in contrast, the price increase has been passed immediately onto consumers. Why the different treatment? Part of the explanation is that an airtime tax of […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is about the tax increases on internet data in Kenya and Uganda. In Kenya, the excise duty on data (as well as calls) was increased from 15% to 20%, effective 1 July 2021. In Uganda, the social media tax of 200 shillings per day has been replaced by a 12% excise duty on internet data, also effective on 1 July. Medical and educational services are excluded from the duty, though it’s not clear how the exclusion of medical and educational services would actually work. The increase in excise duties highlights the […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is about the status of 5G in Africa. While plenty of countries are investigating 5G, only two countries offer fully commercial 5G services on the continent – Kenya and South Africa. In Kenya, 5G is offered based on a 1-year trial license. In South Africa, 5G is offered based on the emergency allocation of spectrum due to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic. That allocation is meant to expire later on this year. The next country that is closest to launching 5G services is Mauritius. Mauritius decided to forego an auction […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is from Tanzania, where the government has announced that it will remove VAT on smartphones, tablets, and modems. The rationale for setting aside VAT is to increase broadband penetration from its current level of 38% to over 80% by 2025. This decision is a welcome development in a continent where most governments’ see the ICT sector as a cash cow and have imposed extremely high taxes. Often taxes are specific to the ICT sector and considerably higher than for other sectors. In Sudan, for example, the VAT rate for the ICT sector […]

KEY READING FOR THE WEEK This week’s main story is an overview of the growth of the submarine cable market. Back in 2012, content providers (such as Amazon, Google, Facebook) accounted for 10% of total capacity. By 2020, that number had grown to 66% of total capacity. As a consequence, content providers are driving submarine cable investments. For example, both Google and Facebook have invested in new submarine cables connecting South East Asia to North America. The growth in data usage for content providers also shows how data is driving access. Content providers drive data usage, which in turn, drives data […]