When you think of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and all the subsequent benefits it affords, you might just make the assumption that all companies and countries around the world are flocking to this advantageous technology. But when it comes to VoIP adoption in Africa, you might need to rethink your sentiment.
The reasons for choosing VoIP for your business are countless; it allows you to make cheap international calls, to set up conference calls with multiple people, to say goodbye to cost prohibitive hardware and to enjoy abundant features that make the VoIP experience rich and sophisticated. So with all these benefits, why is Africa not jumping at the chance to use VoIP technology? It’s because of a variety of legal and network limitations.
“VoIP is still in the early stage in Africa for a number of reasons,” Dries Plasman of Voxbone, a market leader in providing worldwide geographical, toll-free and iNum (News - Alert) telephone numbers, told TMCnet. “First of all, the deregulation of the telecoms environment has yet to happen in most of the African countries. These battles have started, however, because the incumbent operators are very powerful and protective of their territory; the process of deregulation is very lengthy.”
“A second limiting factor is the network,” he added. “Wired networks are not as capilar as in other parts of the world. This limits the use of fixed VoIP as a substitute for classical PSTN landlines. In addition, local loop unbundling is not yet available on the African continent, except in South Africa. While most people will be using VoIP on a mobile phone, it does require that their mobile data networks are also reliable enough to support a decent VoIP service. Today, wireless networks are not so pervasive and reliable.”
But, according to Plasman, these legal and network ramifications are leaving Africa 10 to 15 years behind in terms of telecommunications deregulation, widespread VoIP adoption and the creation of VoIP-based services. Moreover, because the telecommunications environment in Africa is not yet ready for VoIP, competition is limited so voice and Internet prices are astronomical and innovation is curtailed.
Conversely, in other areas around the world, the first step towards more competition and better rates is through carrier-preselect (CPS)-based services for landline telephony, PC-to-PC VoIP and mobile data texting.
Fortunately for those companies in Africa looking to take their first dive into the VoIP pool, Sonetel – a provider of a free, global PBX (News - Alert) service – is here and is ready to help facilitate that jump. Touted as “the easiest, cheapest and fastest way” to get a telephony solution for your company, Sonetel is in the midst of commemorating its one-year anniversary, having unveiled the first version of its phone system in late 2010.
“Sonetel is ideally positioned to be the infrastructure of choice for entrepreneurs in Africa,” Henrik Thomé, CEO of Sonetel, told TMCnet. “By using Sonetel’s freemium service, African entrepreneurs can get a professional front-end for their business with zero fixed costs and also open ‘virtual offices’ in any countries where they see a market for their products or services. This is done by getting a local phone number from Sonetel – for example in France – where calls are connected via VoIP to the business in Africa – for example in Burundi – or have the call forwarded to a mobile phone in Burundi in case of lack of Internet access. The fixed cost for a ‘virtual office’ can be as low as $0.99 per month.”
As there are more than 50 countries in Africa with a total of one billion people, Africa is poised to leap into the VoIP market particularly since there are a multitude of burgeoning entrepreneurs across the continent looking to craft successful business and create jobs in their home countries.
Africa has a competitive edge in terms of cost of labor and a wider variety of International languages, but the biggest challenges are lack of infrastructure, nepotism and corruption, according to Thomé.
“The Internet and VoIP levels the playing field, allowing any entrepreneur, anywhere on the planet to start selling services or products – independent of geography,” he added. “Deregulation of VoIP and improved Internet infrastructure is an apparent potential driver for growth and entrepreneurship in Africa. Countries that deregulate their old telecom markets drive down costs for the consumers and their local businesses by allowing competition to run its course. This also feeds back into the entrepreneurial spirit of the country, allowing new ideas to more easily be tested in their home market as well.”
Despite the reticence of African countries to make the switch to VoIP, Sonetel has already found a sweet spot in various continents where VoIP adoption is slower as more than 25 percent of Sonetel users are based in Africa and 50 percent come from Asia. And for the PBX provider, it is just happy to help these continents get off the ground and running when it comes to VoIP.
“Sonetel is all about globalization,” Thomé said. “We love empowering entrepreneurs with limited funds in all the emerging markets of the world.”
Edited by Rich Steeves