VoIP Booming in Africa

securitas writes "The NY Times reports on the rapid growth of voice-over-IP telephony (VoIP) in sub-Saharan Africa and the battles it is waging with the government monopolies/ILECs. VoIP upstarts are taking market share from the government telcos, making it vastly more affordable to make a phone call since they don't charge the usual exorbitant tariffs and excessive user fees. Governments have responded by shutting down these operations, seizing equipment and cutting off service to lines they suspect of using Internet telephony. Part of the boom is related to the wait times for getting a phone line (Ghana Telecom has a backlog of 300,000 line requests), poor quality of service (50% of time you get a busy signal instead of a dial-tone) plus the willingness to trade voice quality for basic service. Foreign companies are now setting up VoIP call centers and multinationals like gold giant Newmont Mining plan to use VoIP for communications in and out of Africa. Some observers call Accra the next Bangalore, predicting a boom for the region that may make sub-Saharan Africa a major technology hub. This fits nicely with Kofi Annan's drive to use the Internet and wireless networks to change the lives of the poor."

Comments

Your mileage may vary

[Snake_Plisken]

Our offshore call center uses VoIP. Quality is shakey, it is difficult to hear, and calls get dropped or crossed with other service providers out of that facility. If Ghana has no other option (the 300,000 waiting list makes it sound like they don't) then I guess anything is beter than nothing, but as a professional business tool I don't think VoIP is there yet for rock solid stability and clear communciation.

With a bit of luck...

[rjch]

...this will be the start of the demise of telephone networks - at least over in Africa, anyway. VoIP is getting more and more refined, along with more and more applications, such as the GPL'd Asterisk software PABX system. Most of the larger PABX systems I've seen around give the capability for VoIP links to other offices and if suitable gateways become more widely available, the move to VoIP will slowly but surely become more widespread as the larger companies that deal with the countries that have widespread VoIP penetration start to use those links to reduce the cost of making phone calls.

Can't come soon enough for my liking.

Irony?

[poptones]

How ironic is it that third world nations could end up leading the way in voip adoption? in the US this is still a mishmash of technologies and there is comparatively little use simply because we have so many competing options for phone service.

This is but one more great example of how monopolies can be good for markets; Put enough pressure on a resource, and people will find alternatives.

It would be great if this could help uplift the entire continent, but I still have my doubts. Corporations bring in the money, and no corporation is going to set up shop in a country with no stable government... which seems to be a real theme on that continent.

Re:Irony?

[jc42]

How ironic is it that third world nations could end up leading the way in voip adoption?

Not at all; that's exactly where you'd expect it to happen first. In more advanced countries, you'd expect the established phone companies to have the clout to block it.

But it's not even true that third-world nations were first. There have already been a lot of stories about how most of the new phone service in Japan is now VoIP. And Japan isn't exactly a third-world nation.

The real puzzle is why Nippon Tel didn't manage to block it.

Here in the US, we've been reading about how the phone system has gone to IP for essentially all long-distance traffic. But the phone companies have done a good job of blocking VoIP at the retail level, because this would destroy their main source of income.

Re:The next Bangalore...

[doktor-hladnjak]

So how long until we start outsourcing jobs there?

From what they talk about in the article, it already seems there's a call center there, which is being used to sell services in the northeastern US. Despite the claims of the article though, places like Ghana (which is really one of the better off places in Africa) still lack the resources that places like India have. Programming jobs are outsourced to India because 1) there is an education system there that produces a work force capable of doing that kind of work and 2) companies aren't afraid to invest or do business there due to political instability. Both of these are really important to get foreign investment. Take Pakistan for example. Problems with 2) have really limited opportunities there, even though it does have some of 1).

I know no west african nation has this sort of infrastructure in place at this time. However, in the future, I suppose it could happen in places with stable governments and the necessary investments.

Most people take the telephone for granted.

[c4Ff3In3 4ddiC]

It isn't until you see an article like this that you realize exactly how much you take for granted when you make a simple phone call. Can you imagine if the Government in your country forced you to use their own crappy telephone service? It's kind of surprising that some people complain about the breaking up of AT&T but the end result is better, cheaper phone service.

Cost

[Traa]

I don't really get the hype around VoIP nowdays. In the last few years my local+long distance phone bill went from $30 per month to $20 per month. And I call a lot, especially from California to my family in The Netherlands. My Internet bill on the other hand went from $9.95 (modem days) to $49.50 for fairly standard DSL (1.5M/768K). So in the time they got us VoIP, the costs have shifted enough that it becomes rather insignificant.

If you wanna control people, control communication

[LostCluster]

In the old Soviet Russia, one of the first signs that there is an attempted coup in progress was that the Moscow TV stations were invaded by supporters of whomever is trying to take power. The reason was simple, if you controled the TV signals you controled the easiest means of communications with the people, and one of their few sources of news. You could tell your story uninterfered with, and block the other side's ability to tell theirs.

This is why governments want to control their phone systems, and why they don't really want it to work that well. They don't want it to be too easy for their subjects to communicate with each other, particularlly they're scared somebody's going to discuss the overthrow of those in power. The ability to freely communicate and have at least something that resembles a fair election of leaders is taken for granted in most of North America and Europe, but in other places it's not so easy.

So, by creating a telephone monopoly that makes a half-hearted effort, they've been able to say that they have telephone service for business purposes, while still limiting their people's ability to talk to each other over distance. But, the Internet snuck up on these regimes from behind, and just now they're realizing they forgot to regulate and monopolize it. VoIP isn't that good or reliable compared to well-maintained phone systems, but it's pretty good compared to intentionally mismanaged ones. Competition is usually welecomed because it forces the old monopoly to either perform to the best of its abilities or get out of the game, but this time the monopoly is just crying to the rulers and the rulers see the need to solve this problem the same way they solve any other threat to their ability to stay in power...

VoIP is an idea that looks interesting on the chalkboard but there's no reason for Americans to convert to it when they have an ultra-reliable phone network and pretty good cell phone coverage in populated areas. It's the places that don't have those things that really need VoIP.