Delegates from the African Union, governments and regulators, operators and enterprise representatives, analysts in the region have met to discuss strategies to expand broadband services and develop broadband applications in Africa.

Broadband has become an important engine for economic development.

According to the World Bank studies, every 10 per cent of broadband penetration can generate 1.5 per cent of GDP growth.

In the past few years, the broadband penetration rate and average speed in the African region have increased rapidly, but they are still far behind the global average.

The conversations were part of the Broadband Africa Forum, the most influential broadband industry summit in the Africa region, hosted by Informa Tech and co-sponsored by Huawei.

Under the theme of the summit, “Lighting Up African Future With High-Quality Broadband”, experts from the region and all over the world shared their experience and discussed how to achieve booming broadband growth in Africa with innovation in policy, commercial and technology.

During the event, UK-based technology research company, Omdia, released the “Africa Broadband Outlook 2021” together with FDI Index, which revealed that fiber and FWA emerge as the mainstream broadband technologies in Africa.

The report also revealed that African governments are becoming more active, increasingly providing funding and developing policies to support broadband development.

“Huawei has stayed in Africa for more than 20 years. We have a dream that is to bring digital to every African home,” said Benjamin Hou, President of Huawei Northern Africa Carrier Business Dept.

“We are committed to providing advanced broadband solutions and introducing the global best experience, and help African people to bridge the digital divide.”

According to the organisers, the COVID-19 epidemic has profoundly changed the operation mode of organizations and individual lifestyles, and African countries need to treat broadband as universal services like water and electricity to support social stability and economic development.

The active involvement and support of governments have provided a new engine for broadband deployment, and the new generation advanced technology has created new opportunities for Africa to bridge the digital divide.

All stakeholders should actively participate, open and cooperate to promote the development of the broadband popularization in Africa.