African Broadband, Triple Play and Converged Markets

Well over half of the countries on the continent now have some kind of broadband offer delivered through DSL, wireless or satellite. The introduction of DSL by the telco incumbents has shifted the balance of power decisively in their direction and away from the independent ISPs. Mobile operators are increasingly offering higher bandwidth rates to data users and some have gone as far as to acquire their own ISPs. In this context, the report looks at pricing strategies and how different wholesalers and retailers in the value chain are affecting the final price to the user.

The increasing amount of broadband capacity has seen some operators begin to offer "triple-play": voice, Internet and broadcast content. For some operators, IP-TV is simply another distribution opportunity, whilst others are investing significant sums of money in becoming content producers. The report looks at how these new IP-TV content producers will fit into the existing broadcast and media markets, particularly the satellite Pay-TV market.

Converged content has come early to the continent with some of the first mobile TV trials taking place in South Africa. The report looks at: what has been learnt from the trials, the business models used to sell this kind of service elsewhere; other examples of converged services and their value chains; and where else in Africa this kind of service might work.

African Satellite Markets

This report looks at the current state of satellite provision for Africa and at the costs and factors affecting satellite bandwidth supply. Although the implementation of fibre infrastructure is gaining pace on the continent, satellite remains crucial for the continent.

The report includes: the impact of EASSy on satellite pricing; key trends in new satellite provision; detailed coverage maps; profiles of main operators; and a pricing survey based on what users pay.

African VoIP Markets

Africa's VoIP traffic has been growing steadily over the last five years but most of this growth has been "below the radar". Using data from our new African Voice and Data Bandwidth Forecasts (2006-2011) (see below), the report seeks to quantify the scale of existing "grey markets" and the rise of new legal VoIP markets. It includes current and historic data on fixed line international calling and equivalent grey market prices.

It also looks at the transition to IP networks amongst African telcos (both mobile and fixed), ISPs and data carriers. It identifies those carriers that have made or will shortly make the transition to IP at different levels: international, national and local.

The report includes: International wholesale VoIP markets; Retail VoIP markets; PC-to-PC use; Corporate VoIP markets; the transition by carriers to IP networks; a regulatory state-of-play; and African VoIP futures (including double and triple play, mobile VoIP and VoIP peering and eNUM).

The African Internet Country Market Profiles series described below has four parts and covers every continent and territory on the continent. It describes the state of the Internet in the years 2004-2005. If you order all four parts, you can get a 20% reduction.

• African Internet Country Market Profiles: Part 1 - West Africa (22 countries)
• African Internet Country Market Profiles: Part 2 - East Africa (15 countries and territories)
• African Internet Country Market Profiles: Part 3 - Southern and Central Africa (12 countries)
• African Internet Country Market Profiles: Part 4 - North Africa (5 countries)

African Telecoms and Internet Markets - Part 1: West Africa

African Telecoms and Internet Markets will provide: new and up-to-date research data; growth data over several years for key markets; and the growth potential in each country market.

The African Internet and Telecoms Markets has five parts and covers every continent and territory on the continent. If you order all four parts, you can get a 20% reduction. The five parts of African Telecoms and Internet Markets series are as follows:

Part 1 - West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo. (16 countries)

African Telecoms and Internet Markets - Part 2: Central Africa

African Telecoms and Internet Markets will provide: new and up-to-date research data; growth data over several years for key markets; and the growth potential in each country market.

The African Internet and Telecoms Markets has five parts and covers every continent and territory on the continent. If you order all four parts, you can get a 20% reduction. The five parts of African Telecoms and Internet Markets series are as follows:

Part 2 - Central Africa: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe. (8 countries)

African Voice and Data Bandwidth Forecasts (2006 - 2011)

This bandwidth projection model updates our previous forecasts to look at the future requirement for bandwidth for the years 2006 - 2011. It follows the same pattern as the previous forecasts but contains a wealth of new data input gathered since the first forecasts were published in October 2005 and adds data from the five North African countries. The projections are broken down by sub-region: North Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa and East Africa .

It provides a number of different growth scenarios and indicates which of the scenarios is most likely with the assumptions used. It also reflects on the changes that have occurred since the forecasts were last published and how these have affected the different assumptions used. It brings together both demand for telephony and Internet bandwidth to enable the user to see what the potential traffic will be for satellite and fibre operators.

This year's forecasts offers figures on voice both in minutes and translated into its equivalent data capacity.

M-Money - Finances, Banking and Payments through mobile phones

There is a growing discussion about how financial services will be provided and accessed in Africa. Access to new forms of basic banking and payments systems looks set to be a key driver of change for most economies in Africa and Asia, as is the increased ease and flow of international remittances. These payment systems are beginning to provide greater competition and efficiency among financial institutions.

Mobile phones offer a potential gateway for both local and international banking and payment services, and there are an growing number of initiatives from both public and private sector encouraging their use.

It seems that there is considerable demand and there is a strong market for such services - in the first four months of operation, M-pesa, the mobile phone enabled payment system set up by Safricom in Kenya, gained 150,000 customers.

This report provides the information needed to assess M-Money as a business opportunity. It outlines the various models and concepts of mobile enabled transactions (Mbanking, Mpayments, Mtransactions), differentiating between the various business models, and illustrating the potentially disruptive nature of some of the models. The different business models are further differentiated in the light of the relevant technologies - eg Near Field Communication, Sim Cards and Combined Smart Cards.

The report maps various developments in terms of current markets, and identifies the challenges presented by current regulations. It looks at how the market will change over the next few years, and how this may be supported or held back by regulatory changes.