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Africa's Fibre Roll-Out: 138 Route-Kms of New Fibre Network Enters Service Per Day

2011 Africa Telecom Transmission Map Published

Africa’s total inventory of terrestrial transmission networks increased by 15% over the last year to reach 676,739 route-kms by the end of September 2011, according to the third edition of the Africa Telecom Transmission Map.

Laid end-to-end, that is enough network infrastructure to wrap around the earth almost 17 times. This compares to 660,230-kms in June 2011, 585,468-kms in June 2010 and 465,659-kms in June 2009.

In the last twelve months, on average 138 route-kms of new fibre network entered service per day. (Route-kms of transmission network infrastructure are counted as the number of kilometers of cable or microwave network, irrespective of the number of optical fibres contained within each cable). By the end of the year, there will be continuous interconnected terrestrial fibre networks running from Cape Town to Cairo.

The total length of operational fibre and microwave network increased by 14.5% in the last year, with an additional 60,000-kms of new network entering service since September 2010. Laid end-to-end, that is enough network infrastructure to encircle the earth 1.5 times.

The increase of fibre reach is bringing high capacity national and international fibre backbone networks to dozens of new towns and cities for the first time, increasing the number of people with access to broadband networks (see also: Terrestrial Network Rollout Increases Africa’s Fibre Reach By 54 Million).

New! Interactive Gold Transmission Map

We are pleased to announce a new addition to our Gold Transmission Map Dataset subscription. The Interactive Gold Transmission Map now allows you to add your own KML files directly onto the highest resolution web version of the Africa Transmission Map.

This feature allows you to directly compare your own sites, networks or satellite footprints for example against the extent of terrestrial transmission networks. In this example shown here, we have dropped a KML file of African IXPs onto the transmission map. We have also added a measuring tool as part of a new map toolbar, so that you can measure the length of a particular route, section of network or the distance to the nearest fibre node.

Africa's Forward Inventory Of Fibre Twice As Large As 2009

What is particularly interesting about this is that behind the network which is entering service, the forward inventory of network which is under deployment, is being planned or proposed is also increasing.

There is now twice as much fibre under deployment across Africa as there was two years ago (62,255.5-km in September 2011, compared to 45,499.3-km in September 2010, and 31,687.7-km in September 2009).

South Africa is the largest contributor to this growth in the last year, with the extension of existing fibre networks of Broadband Infraco and Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), new long-haul networks being built by FibreCo and the cobuild consortium of Neotel, MTN and Vodacom, and the roll-out of metropolitan networks in many major towns and cities.

The subscription-based web versions of the telecom transmission map are updated on a quarterly basis. This chart shows the quarterly increase in the number of route-kms of transmission network by operational status.

2011 Africa Telecom Transmission Map - Out Now


Order the 2011 Africa Telecom Transmission Map from here. Preview the poster map here and a Google Earth version here.

Interactive Gold Transmission Map


The interactive Gold Transmission Map is now included as part of the Gold Transmission Map Dataset subscription.


Chart: Route-Kms Terrestrial Transmission Network, Africa Q2 2009 – Q3 2011

Printed from: http://www.africabandwidthmaps.com/?p=2572 .
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