The biggest transformation going on in the enterprise data market today is the shift to Secure Access Service Edge.  The idea behind SASE is to integrate SD-WAN, security, and access together in ways that can support today’s hybrid work environments.  With its global network assets, Lumen is in a position to support that shift and recently launched its own SASE offering.  With us today to talk about Lumen’s approach to SASE and where he sees the market going is Darren Wolner.  Darren has been with Lumen almost 7 years and has served as Senior Director, Product Management – SASE at Lumen since November 2021. … [visit site to read more]

Orange Botswana has become the first Orange affiliate to launch 5G, covering 30% of the population including greater Gaborone and Francistown. Other cities will follow in early 2023.

It follows the launch of Botswana’s first Orange Digital Centre this morning, which will help bridge the digital divide and prepare Botswana youth for employment in a blossoming digital ecosystem. This 5G launch will support innovation and digital inclusion in the country, putting Botswana at the forefront of 5G in Africa, and is closely aligned with the government’s ambition to leverage Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) innovation towards transforming Botswana into a knowledge-based economy.

Offering ultra-high speed and low latency, 5G will support new disruptive services such as e-health, connected vehicles, connected cities, real-time gaming, smart homes and learning through VR and augmented reality. In the field of medicine, Orange Botswana has partnered with MRI Botswana to create a Connected Ambulance project that will allow Doctors to guide Paramedics through life saving procedures on their way to hospitals. The operator also plans to collaborate with government and enterprises on 5G-based use cases.

After the commercial launch of 5G services in Botswana, Orange Middle East and Africa intends to maintain its efforts in delivering advanced technologies to its MEA markets, adding value to local economies and bridging the digital gap within African populations.

In other countries, regulators still have not officially initiated the 5G licence attribution process, although many of them – such as Cote d’Ivoire – showed a clear will to make 5G spectrum available in 2023. Meanwhile, Orange is collaborating with several regulatory bodies to help build a 5G deployment roadmap while testing the technology and developing use cases that fit with the local populations’ need.

Jerôme Henique, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa, says: “The launch of 5G technology in Botswana will allow us to scale-up this technology and gain experience for other Orange countries across Africa. The benefits and potential impact of this are promising. It will help promote Africa’s digital inclusion, resulting in socio-economic growth and job creation. It is also ensuring Africa’s skills development on digital management tools and is in line with the ambitions of the African Union “Digital Transformation for Africa (2022 – 2030)”. It begins here and now, in Botswana.”

Nene Maiga, CEO of Orange Botswana says: “At Orange Botswana, we are excited to be bringing in a new technology that will allow economic players to discover new possibilities enabled by 5G, and the way it could positively transform their daily activities. 5G connectivity is an incredible opportunity for businesses and the government, who are eager to take their operations to the next level. It is going to change how customers experience connectivity.”

Henique noted that Orange’s next MEA market to receive 5G connectivity will likely be Jordan, as the required agreements are already in place with the government, with Ivory Coast and Senegal likely to follow.

Maiga added that the cost of 5G devices in Botswana was something of a deterrent, but as prices edge below US$150, adoption is likely to increase. Henique added that Orange initially focuses on 5G FWA across its MEA footprint, as this is more affordable and ably demonstrates the benefits of 5G – plus the demand for home broadband in these markets is booming.

Henique noted that Ericsson is uing RAN equipment from Huawei in Botswana while tapping Ericsson for the core network, and added that Orange engineers were experienced with both companies, meaning the launch would be seamless. He said that Orange was exploring open RAN, but noted that the operational models were very different and would take time to implement, so traditional vendor models were preferable to achieve a quick launch in Botswana. However, he said that Orange saw promise in decoupling of networks and using a broader range of equipment providers.

In October 2022, Zambia announced that it would zero-rate imports of telecoms equipment in a bid to encourage investment into the country’s ICT sector, which the government views as essential to job creation and economic development in the market.

The decision could prove to be prudent, as Zambia seeks to follow the example of African countries that are a few steps further along the journey to widespread ICT implementation. If Zambia’s endeavour proves fruitful, how likely are we to see the move replicated by similar African markets keen to replicate this success?

To find out, we spoke to IDC analyst Mark Walker, who highlighted Kenya and Rwanda as two of the standout nations in Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of ICT implementation. Walker noted that Kenya’s connection to subsea cables linking Mombasa to Nairobi has been hugely significant to the nation’s economy in terms of exposure to investment, but at a local level – for example provision of basic social services and access to communications, as well as services such as education and telehealth. Fintech in particular is a vibrant sector, and the proliferation of Safaricom’s M-Pesa service has significantly grown the Kenyan economy.

The key challenge has always been skills, but skill development is a lot easier as smartphones proliferate, as they provide access to tools, materials, technology and collaboration. Walker noted that Africa in general has a young population that is technologically literate, particularly with mobile – and added that the device profile of the continent is fast skewing towards smartphones, with access that has traditionally been concentrated in cities now spreading to rural areas. “If you speak to some of the major telcos across the region – MTN, the telcos in Zambia, Orange, Airtel – the way they see it is the cities are done”, explains Walker. “The mobile phone penetration has still got a way to go consumer-wise, but it’s pretty much mature, and rapidly maturing.”

The next step is to bring it into the business environment, with a focus on B2B, enterprise, and providing access in more semi rural and rural areas. This is resulting in more data centre investment, with financial institutions and governments beginning to build and develop data centres – and this actually addresses pre-existing issues around data sovereignty in which data must be stored locally.

Meanwhile, operators are realising that they can no longer be pure communications technology providers, and are focusing more becoming digital service providers while also concentrating on the small/medium enterprise space. The future growth of African enterprises will depend on access to global markets as well as regional markets, and this will be enabled by technology – from basic manufacturing through to fintech.

“[Zambia is a] fast grower – it’s a landlocked country, obviously, so what is the communication picture there? It’s going to be fibre, they’re going to have to work with their surrounding countries, most likely Angola and Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, to get access to the undersea cables” says Walker. “But there’s a lot of development happening around the pan-continental fibre network as well, so they can tap into that.”

Walker highlights the country’s young population who are eager to acquire ICT skills – as evidenced in other markets such as DRC and Kenya, where development and coding camps are typically oversubscribed. He notes that there is a lot of investment into skills building in Africa by international organisations – and while infrastructure has to be there first, many countries are now getting this right, including Zambia.

Having previously cited Kenya and Rwanda as successful examples of African ICT implementation, Walker notes that Zambia shares similarities with the latter in particular, such as a concentration of good skill sets and a manageable, well-educated workforce, as well as forward-thinking politicians.

He describes Zambia’s zero-rating policy as a good start: “Once the infrastructure is in, then you can start building quickly out. It seems to me that they want to encourage very quick investment into infrastructure, get the comms equipment on the ground and connected, and the rest will follow, so getting the infrastructure layer sorted. That’s a good way to do it, especially if there’s no tax on it to encourage local investment as well as international investment.”

While the impact of Zambia’s decision to zero-rate imports of telecoms equipment remains to be seen, it’s hard to imagine it will discourage investment in the sector. This begs the question of whether other countries could adopt similar measures. According to Walker, “if they’re wise they will. If they are serious about getting onto the growth bandwagon, then by all means it could be a template.”

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This Industry Spotlight was authored by Melissa Morgan, Head of Product Marketing at Sitetracker

Reviewing potential sites for selection, sourcing equipment amid supply-chain bottlenecks, managing in-house and contractor labor, dealing with permitting, and a whole lot more: Installing a single 5G site represents a formidable management challenge. Now try it with thousands of sites across vast geographies as 5G rolls out at a torrid pace. … [visit site to read more]

Keep up-to-date with all the latest news, articles, event and product updates posted on Developing Telecoms.
Subscribe to our FREE weekly email newsletters for the latest telecom info in developing and emerging markets globally.