Broadband for Africa : DevelopingBackbone Communications Networks

Williams, Mark D. J.

World Bank

关键词: ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    ACCESS TO RADIO;    ACCESS TO THE INTERNET;    ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORT;    BACKBONE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-8172-4
RP-ID  :  53643

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa seeinformation and communication technology (ICT) as anecessary foundation for long-term economic development.While the region has been very successful in increasingaccess to basic voice communications, there has been nocomparable improvement in broadband connectivity. In fact,the broadband access gap between Sub-Saharan Africa and therest of the world is getting wider just as the gap in basicvoice communications is getting smaller. Increasing accessto broadband connectivity is therefore emerging as a highpriority for policy makers across the continent. This bookbegins with a brief review of the ICT market and considersthe extent of demand for broadband and the ICT services thathigh-capacity backbone networks make possible. This isfollowed by a review of the existing coverage of backbonenetworks in the region, a discussion of how this compareswith other parts of the world, and an analysis of thepossible explanations for the current pattern of networkdevelopment. Finally, the book presents a set of policyoptions that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa mightconsider in promoting the development of backbone networksin their countries.