• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Huawei sees potential in broadband expansion in Africa

As part of plans to expand its broadband portfolio in the African continent, Huawei launched the multi-service bearer network solutions. The new solution is expected to enable operators attract more users and develop effective home broadband and enterprise solutions.

In a statement sent to BusinessDay, Huawei said that successful implementation of multi-service development transformation will shorten return on investment (ROI) by 3 years.

“With the acceleration of the global digitisation process, traditional telecom operators are faced with the transition from a single business development to a full-service operation.

“Africa is at the beginning of the development of home broadband solutions and enterprise green businesses in emerging markets, therefore the development space and potential in this segment is great,” the statement noted.

Huawei noted that on the continent, Southern Africa could be making more progress than any other region on the continent. The region presently has 3.5 million families of broadband users and is projected to reach 28 million users of broadband in the next five years.

A research conducted by OVUM found that the number of fixed enterprise subscribers in the African region has grown by 10 percent every year. With South Africa as a reference, the research shows that the total number of enterprise currently is 4.5 million. The current network link capability is about 520,000. Enterprise chain rates are only 12 percent – Space for the 3.98 million. According to the average ARPU value of $100 per line, the annual revenue space will reach 4.8 million.

Despite the potential for network operators, they bigger challenge however is how to address the risk involved in the industry. The risk include weak infrastructure, high fibre deployment costs, business “online” for extended period, lack of operational experience among other issues. These challenges are responsible for the high initial investment costs and long investment recovery cycles operators face.

“Huawei’s multi-service bear network solutions help operators invest and meet the end-user fast business online demands of today. It also builds confidence with operators and achieve full business transformation of the business cycle,” the statement noted.

Huawei hopes that through establishment of home broadband and enterprise users’ operators can accurate big data analysis and potential user identification.

“Potential user identification on the network after the initial coverage phase helps to reduce the business online time, relative to the traditional needs of network construction modes. It also saves on-site acquisition and infrastructure construction with business on-line time improvements by 60 percent,” Huawei said.