The other three countries are Tanzania, South Africa and Kenya. Investment in the five countries was put at $2.8 billion in 2011, due to increase in the number of their Base Tranceiver Stations, which were said to have increased by 250 per cent.
These figures were released at the weekend by the Global System for Mobile Telecommunications Association (GSMA) , at the just concluded AfricaCom 2012 conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
GSMA, which represents the interest of mobile operators worldwide, said sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest-growing mobile market in the world, with a prodigious average yearly growth rate of 44 per cent since 2000.
Presenting the figures, the Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer, GSMA, Tom Phillips, who canvassed for necessary spectrum allocations and transparent regulation, said the mobile industry could fuel the generation of 14.9 million new jobs in sub-Saharan Africa between 2015 and 2020.
Philips said the mobile technology has already revolutionised African society and yet demand still continues to grow by almost 50 per cent per year.
“To create an environment that supports and encourages this immense growth, it is imperative that governments work in partnership with mobile operators to enable the industry to thrive throughout the region, ultimately providing affordable options to connect its citizens”, Philips said.
According to him, the region has some of the highest level of mobile Internet users globally. He disclosed that in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, mobile accounts for over half of all web traffic at 58.1 per cent and 57.9 per cent respectively, compared to a 10 per cent global average, adding that 3G penetration levels are forecast to grow by 46 per cent through 2016, as the use of mobile-specific services develops.
In an interview with The Guardian, GSMA Director of Spectrum Policy, Africa and Middle East, Peter Lyons, who said the rapid pace of mobile adoption has delivered huge economic benefits to the region, directly contributing $32 billion to the sub-Saharan African economy or 4.4 per cent of GDP, noted that Nigeria and other sub-Saharan Africa economies faces a looming ‘capacity and coverage crunch’ in terms of available mobile spectrum..
Lyon said the current amount of spectrum allocated to mobile services in sub-Saharan Africa was amongst the lowest worldwide.
According to him, some countries apportion as little as 80MHz, compared to developed markets where allocation for mobile exceeds 500MHz.
With mobile Internet traffic forecast to grow 25-fold over the next four years, he disclosed that there will be a considerable increase in network congestion unless governments across the region take urgent steps to release new spectrum in line with the recommendations of the International Telecommunications Union’s World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC).
According to him, these includes capacity in the Digital Dividend (700-800 MHz) band and the 2.6 GHz band, and also liberalising existing licence agreements to allow the deployment of high-speed UMTS and LTE networks in the 900 and 1800MHz bands.
The GSMA Director of Spectrum Policy for Africa and Middle East noted that the combined aggregated effect of the spectrum release of the Digital Dividend, 2.6GHz and the refarming of 1800MHz would have a positive impact on job creation. “An additional 14.9 million jobs could be created between 2015 and 2020 in the key six markets in the region. Mobile industry growth could also generate a GDP increase of $40 billion, representing 0.54 per cent of total GDP, in the region by 2016. Meanwhile, failure to harmonise spectrum allocations in the region could add up to $9.30 in handset costs for African consumers.”
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