Mohammed Aliyu at Bayobab Group talks of how a fresh fibre drive will take communications to the next level.
Digital connectivity has come on leaps and bounds in Africa in the past few years, with access to broadband on the continent rising from 26 per cent of the population in 2019 to 36 per cent in 2022, according to the World Bank. That increase has gone together with a surge in speed, affordability and service quality.
At the same time, there is still massive room for improvement, given that this means two-thirds of the region’s population is still unconnected. Remote and poorer regions lack access to the digital economy, with big challenges particularly in getting internet to landlocked countries. There are also significant complexities when it comes to regulatory frameworks conducive to effective rollouts, while constraints are exacerbated by limitations in digital literacy and skills.
“To drive the digital economy, enhance GDP and positively impact people's lives in areas such as education and healthcare, a robust digital infrastructure with underlying connectivity is indispensable,” says Mohammed Aliyu, chief fibreco officer at Bayobab Group. “But there are challenges and complexities when navigating the continent that slow down the rate at which we can deliver connectivity solutions through our terrestrial and subsea cable infrastructure.”
Fresh potential
On the other side of the coin, this gap means there is huge potential for telecoms carriers and enterprises alike to capitalise on opportunities as the region rapidly grows in a bid to catch up with other parts of the world. That is further enhanced when considering the significant anticipated expansion in the addressable market, with the continent’s already huge population of 1.5 billion predicted to swell by a further 1 billion people by 2050.
“We observe considerable initiatives aimed at enhancing connectivity within countries,” notes Aliyu. “Doing that translates to a larger population embracing the digital realm, empowering individuals, fostering increased GDP, and ultimately contributing to an improved quality of life for Africans at large.”
The rebranded Bayobab is positioning itself at the vanguard of this push to help resolve the significant connectivity gap that remains in Africa, fuelled by the impetus lent by its own transformation. “Bayobab is at the forefront of helping to bridge the connectivity gap in Africa,” says Aliyu. “We’re going to add more high-capacity capillaries through infrastructure running into terabyte speeds, so that it’s available to help develop economies.”
As part of achieving this, Bayobab is seeking to expand its reach to 135,000km of terrestrial fibre across Africa by 2025, with the company currently owning 112,000km of proprietary fibre. “To be able to connect the unconnected and get infrastructure further inland, we need to build fibre railways in Africa, connecting between where subsea cables land and where the population is,” says Aliyu. “That’s why today we’re engaging in a lot of projects to make sure we do that and to roll out fibre as part of our Ambition 2025 initiative.”
East to west
In a key move to achieve its rollout target for terrestrial fibre, the company has entered into a partnership with infrastructure investment platform Africa50 to develop a terrestrial fibre-optic cable linking the continent’s eastern and western coasts. The initiative, known as Project East2West, will see up to US$320 million invested in connecting the countries along its path in the three years to 2025. It will be crucial to slashing latency on the continent, with a forecast reduction of up to 65% across the route.
On the wholesale side, the project will allow innovative players to harness the network to provide innovative services to users to foster social inclusion, as well as providing vastly improved access to hyperscalers looking to gain an increasing foothold in Africa. “Mobile network operators and other players running consumer and enterprise services can rely on this infrastructure,” says Aliyu. “As part of this, we want to enable other, smaller operators on the African continent to help bridge the digital gap.”
This approach reflects the open-access network portrayed by the company’s rebrand from MTN GlobalConnect to Bayobab, with Africa’s baobab tree injecting life into the ecosystems around it. As part of the strategy, robust partnerships like that with Africa50 are key to unlocking possibilities. By broadening collaboration between players seeking the same goals, such alliances also improve the push to harmonise regulations – building on Bayobab’s own valuable knowledge through parent company MTN’s 30 years of experience on the continent.
Unlocking the continent
As part of its strategy, Bayobab is opening up pathways to landlocked countries that lack access to digital infrastructure away from subsea landing stations on the coasts.
In Zambia, for example, the company was awarded an international network licence in September that enables the transit of capacity across borders. With Bayobab Zambia having rolled out over 4,000km of fibre already and connected to five of the nation’s eight border countries, being able to take this connectivity onward is a boon for data transport between locations. “It’s a welcomed development as a country that borders so many other countries,” says Aliyu.
Bayobab has also secured a contract to manage, operate and maintain fibre infrastructure in the Central African Republic. There, internet penetration is among the lowest in the world, standing at only about 10% of the 5.5 million-strong population and people often having to rely on expensive satellite connections. “We’re going to connect the Central African Republic to the arteries of the world by linking the country up to subsea fibre, bringing about the type of connectivity that is required in the 21st century,” says Aliyu.
When it comes to the subsea side, Bayobab is involved in a wide range of projects to provide the world’s internet backbone, including the likes of the 2Africa, Equiano, EIG, ACE, WACS and EASSy subsea cables. Developments such as the recent landing of the 2Africa cable in various African markets and the 2022 launch of Google's Equiano cable between Western Europe and South Africa are bringing the latest systems to the continent with capacities of hundreds of terabits per second.
These systems are enhancing what Bayobab provides at the same time as it builds terrestrially, while the company also offers access to several cable landing stations. “With subsea cables, we’re interested in every cable that comes around the African continent, be it on the east or west side,” says Aliyu. “This is because we’re interested in making sure that we invest in all activities that connect Africa to the rest of the world.”
Harnessing the cloud
These types of key infrastructure initiatives are helping the continent get connected to cloud services, accelerating the digital transformation across organisations and wider communities. They also bring next-generation digital services to a young population with a growing appetite for access to entertainment services, as well as supporting financial and commercial needs across a wide range of sectors.
As part of enabling the cloud, Bayobab has formed strategic connectivity partnerships with several cloud players. One example is a partnership with Microsoft formed last year to support businesses and public sector organisations in easily connecting to the Microsoft Cloud. “What we’re providing is the means to get you connected into the cloud,” says Aliyu. “We’re also building infrastructure that brings the cloud much closer to people.”
All these initiatives combined, along with the company’s rebranding to Bayobab, are set to breathe fresh life into growth in Africa, helping overcome the hurdles that remain to bringing digital infrastructure to the region and boosting the global drive to bring services closer to end users. They will also enable partners to capitalise on untapped potential in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
“We aim to ensure that we give everybody the benefit of a modern digital life on the continent by connecting Africa to the rest of the world and connecting the world to Africa,” says Aliyu. “For this, the critical infrastructure, which is the mothership on which everything rests, needs to be built.”
He adds that players are recognising the great opportunities that Bayobab’s strategy offers and looking to unite with the company to drive the vision forward. “People have seen the viability and promise that our vision brings, and are very happy to ally with us,” says Aliyu. “We’re getting further inspiration from our rebrand to be carrier-neutral and open-access, and are poised to enable our environment just like the baobab tree enables its own environment.”
To read the full special report on Bayobab's commitment to Connecting Africa, please click here.
