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Mobile GSM operators in Sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly covering most populated areas with telephone services. This report makes an inventory of existing transmission backbones in 18 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and discusses issues related to solutions for improved utilization of such networks.

To reach new areas, the operators keep expanding their transmission links, and the result is the emergence of new telecommunication backbone networks. 23 percent of the Sub-Saharan countries have more or less countrywide coverage, but 40 percent still have major gaps in transmission links. The mobile operators now own and control the bulk of transmission backbone capacity. However, regulation and competition between operators have largely prevented shared use of these emerging backbones.

A number of issues are raised in the report:

• The lack of open access: Open Access implies that backbone facilities should be provided to all interested parties on equal, transparent terms and that access charges should be cost based. Optical fibre cables are often assumed to be transmission media, and the general opinion is that the costs of fibre would be very low. In business terms, Open Access essentially means that all operators agree to compete only on the service layer and not on the infrastructure layer. While this might be possible in the EU countries, the report questions the applicability of these solutions to the African environment. None of the preconditions in Europe apply to Sub-Saharan Africa. A key issue is whether fixed and mobile operators are willing to give up their dominant position on backbone transmission in favour of joint national backbones operating on Open Access principles.
  
  
• the dominating position of the GSM operators and the pricing of transmission services: since the mobile operators would be the largest single customer group for any national backbone network, their own costs can be used as guidance in establishing the market prices for transmission capacity. The current prices charged for transmission are often many times higher than the opportunity cost of building their own capacity. It will be a major challenge to get the fixed incumbents to agree to drastic price reductions (they have already lost substantial market shares both for voice and transmission services).
  
  
• fibre or microwave transmission: ICT services are not likely to take off in Sub-Saharan Africa unless there is ample supply of bandwidth at low costs. Most governments in Sub-Saharan Africa that have developed ambitious national ICT policies and plans hold this view. Some governments even have aspirations of constructing national fibre backbone networks, often forgetting that telecommunications are in the hands of private companies. The report concludes that fibre cables will be very slow to appear unless the mobile operators get involved. The latter generate the bulk of demand, without which the fibre cables would be uneconomical. Market prices must be dramatically reduced to interest the mobile operators and to increase demand.
  
  
• regulation: a liberalization of the telecommunications market is rapidly taking place in Sub- Saharan Africa. The regulatory restrictions imposed on mobile operators regarding resale of transmission capacity have mostly been removed. Regulation no longer seems to hamper the efficient use of mobile backbone networks. A much bigger regulatory issue needs urgent attention, namely the lack of appropriate legislation and regulation for addressing the mobile operators’ dominant position. This applies both to the domestic and to the regional markets. Closed regional transmission networks could be harmful both for the international traffic and for the domestic services. The continental character of the major mobile operators is a regulatory issue without answers.
  

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