GSMA has estimated that eighty per cent of sub-saharan Africa’s 800 million people should have access to mobile telephones by the end of the decade, double the current rate, although government help is needed.
The Africa Director of GSMA, Mortimer Hope, said this while speaking to Reuters on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum.
Hope said “We expect data to keep growing dramatically, and to facilitate that you need more spectrum to handle that data growth.
“It’s very early days for data but we would like it be everywhere you have voice. The extra physical infrastructure deployment is not as big as you would think.”
He said governments should also consider cutting taxes on web-enabled handsets to make them more affordable to consumers on the poorest continent because currently it is only 15 per cent of Africans that have access to the internet through their mobile phones.
He added that mobile phones allows people to communicate and transact at minimal personal and financial cost.