Frank Jejding, the newly-appointed Head of Region for Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa, has call on Africa governments to fashion out ways to deepen broadband penetration on the continent.
Jejding said potential of the African markets are yet untapped and the benefit of mobility in broadband connectivity has become very critical and governments must support its growth.
“Africa needs to combine mobility, cloud technology and broadband. This will improve the continent’s development. I believe that ICT solutions will address poverty, increase expansion and boost productivity.”
“The fact remains that where broadband connectivity has been rapid and as reports have it, a 10 per cent broadband growth brings about 1.3 per cent growth in GDP,” Jejding said.
Relatively, outgoing Head of Region, Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa, Lars Linden, asserts that “Africa still lags behind in technology development because of insufficient bandwidth to connect Africa to the rest of the world.”
“Virtually every kind of technology in hardware, software, mobile phone, computers and in telecommunications that have been developed and launched in developed countries of the world, has equally been launched in most Africa countries, yet the digital gap between African countries and developed countries is far apart,” Linden said at the media unveiling of Frank Jejding as Ericsson’s new head of Sub-Saharan Africa region in Lagos.
He believes Nigeria with its vast opportunities can bridge the digital divide by connecting Africa to the rest of the world if it could fully utilise the avalanche of broadband capacities that are lying at its seashores.
Linden said Ericsson is partnering different governments of the world in driving network rollout that will boost technology development, aimed at ensuring that everyone has connectivity.
He said Ericsson is already partnering with Nigeria government to address low bandwidth penetration in the country by giving insight into what is important to fibre and bandwidth development and how government could develop its fibre connectivity to increase bandwidth penetration in the country.
“It is not our duty to invest in infrastructure, but it is our duty to design, build and manage infrastructure for government and corporate organisations and to advise government on the right technology investment that is profitable to embark upon that will drive technology development within the country,” Linden said.
Meanwhile, Jejding urged operators to embrace managed services as it reduces capital expenditure among others.
He said the process will allow operators to do everything technology on its business without hindrances and be able to concentrate on other business functions including marketing, outsourcing among others.
Managed service is the practice of outsourcing day-to-day management responsibilities as a strategic method for improving operations. This can include outsourcing HR-activities, Production Support and lifecycle build/maintenance activities.
