Chapter 4. Understanding broadband: addressing issues of capacity, speed and quality of service Chart 4.7: Total international Internet bandwidth (in Gbit/s), by level of development, 2000-2010 70’000 World 60’000 Developed 50’000 Developing 40’000 Gbit/s 30’000 20’000 10’000 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database. Box 4.4: Africa joins the global information society Africa is an excellent example of how international Internet band-width allowed Africa’s landlocked developing countries to benefit through cross-border backhaul routes.41 New national fibre backbone networks have further improved national connectivity and expanded terrestrial transmission networks on the African continent from 466 000 km in July 2009 to 646 000 km by the first quarter of 2011.42 With this, it is estimated that, by early 2011, 4.4 per cent of Africa’s population lived within a 25 km range of a submarine cable landing station, while 31 per cent lived within 25 km of an operational fibre node. Some African countries have managed to cover a very high proportion of their population. In Senegal, for example, over 25 per cent live within a 25 km range of the submarine cable which lands in Dakar, and Sonatel’s fibre backone reaches 72 per cent of the population. In Gabon, Gabon Telecom’s 3 000 km national fibre backbone is expected to bring some 80 per cent of the population within range (25 km) of the network, effectively bringing more and more people within reach of high-capacity backbones.43 Even though new submarine cables are providing African countries with access to more and cheaper international Internet bandwidth, Africa still lags far behind other regions in terms of the bandwidth available to Internet users. For Africans to benefit from the continent’s increased connectivity, operators must acquire greater amounts of international Internet bandwidth, expand and improve core networks, and make network access infrastructure available, as well as affordable. has helped many of the world’s poorest nations to come a step closer to joining the information society. Between 2005 and 2010, international Internet bandwidth in Africa increased from 3 500 to 82 000 Mbit/s, with the greatest growth rate registered between 2009 and 2010. This is mainly the result of a number of new and competing submarine cables that went live in 2010. These include the 10 500 km EASSy cable, which connects Africa to the rest of the world and runs from South Africa to Sudan, with landing points in nine countries and further connections to at least ten landlocked African countries which thus no longer depend solely on satellite access to the Internet.39 EASSy also provided Comoros with its first submarine fibre connection to the Internet, and the country’s international Internet bandwidth increased from 15 Mbit/s in 2009 to 166 Mbit/s a year later. New submarine cables bringing extra bandwidth to Africa include Main One, Glo One and LION. The West African Cable System (WACS), which will run from South Africa to the United Kingdom, with 15 landing stations on the west coast of Africa, is expected to go live in 2011.40 Other major international connections such as ACE and SAex are planned over the next few years and will provide Africa’s Internet users with increased capacities and speeds (see Figure Box 4.4). New international Internet connectivity has not only increased bandwidth capacity in coastal countries but has effectively 100