Introduction: The role of telecommunications has long been recognized as a critical component of the basic infrastructure needed to promote and sustain social and economic development. In the last few years, considerable progress has been made by many of the developing nations of Africa in modernizing their telecommunication infrastructures as they have come to realize that their ability to attract and hold industrial investments of developed nations cannot be accomplished with antiquated telecommunication infrastructures. This paper will discuss the status of connectivity in Africa, the role of the ITU and it's policies regarding development in Africa and will look at the possible use of VSAT satellites by developing nations for improving telecommunication infrastructures and providing Internet access.
Telephony Services Infrastructure in Africa: On a worldwide basis, Africa still has the least developed telecommunications infrastructure with only 2% of the world's telephones-- and an average teledensity of just over 2 phones per 100 inhabitants.
Africa
English: Internet Penetration (% Population). Red ...
English: Cybercafé in the outskirts of Kigali, Rw...(See Appendix 1 attached). Despite this statistic, in the last few years, the African telecom sector has shown progress towards creating more liberal policies to attract foreign investment and improve its infrastructure and services. For instance, by 1998, a total of 20 countries had established independent regulatory agencies (compared to two in 1990)"æ and more and more countries continue to follow suit. By 1998, 17 African telecom operators had allowed some degree of privatization and/or foreign ownership. Despite the growing telecommunications market in Africa, disparity in terms of telephone penetration between various sub-regions of the continent remains a concern. Three sub-regions: Central Africa, East Africa and West Africa still have the lowest teledensity in the world.
Data Services Infrastructure in Africa: Access to the Internet in Africa has also grown rapidly. It is interesting to note that only five years ago 11 countries had Internet access, however...