Telecommunications and connectivity on the continent took centre stage in Cape Town last week for Africa Tech Festival 2024.
A regular fixture at the annual event, Ericsson was present to hold discussions with various stakeholders on new solutions it is hoping to roll out in several countries, as well as highlight developments in existing solutions that are being deployed now.
We sat down with Ericsson VP and head for South and East Africa, Todd Ashton, who unpacked some of the above, but more interestingly highlighted what he is most excited to see evolve on the African continent over the coming months and years.
One such area is mobile money, but before that Ashton wanted to point to a recent paper he co-authored called Connecting Africa sustainably: Radio solutions for a greener future.
Locally tailored
Here he spoke about the company’s radio solutions tailored for the African market that are already starting to yield success and results.
In 2021 for example, Ericsson launched a radio solution called the 6626 which offered dual-band support (900MHz and 800MHz or 1800MHz and 2100 MHz) across all sectors on one radio. It gave Ericsson success in two ways, as the addition of 4G connectivity meant no cost to operators to reinforce the towers, as well as reducing power consumption by 50 percent, which is an issue that not only plagues South Africa, but many parts of the continent too.
Ericsson has recently built upon the success of the 6626 with the launch of a new triple-band supporting radio – the 6646 – in the region. This is what Ericsson is doing from a hardware perspective on the continent, with a specific focus on helping operators and networks in terms of improving rural connectivity.
On the software side of things, with a little bit of AI baked in much to Ashton’s chagrin, is a Deep Sleep Mode from Ericsson to bundle with its cost-effective and more expansive triple-band radio offerings.
“So let’s say in a rural area, if a sector does not have any devices connected it will go into deep sleep. You won’t waste any power. As soon as a device comes in, the solution will power back on to support it. We think this is very relevant in Africa,” he explained.
Looking at other locally relevant solutions being rolled out on the continent, Ashton pointed to West Africa. “In Benin we have deployed a monopole solution that is solar powered, making it suitable for off-grid. We have not managed to deploy it widely, but it’s something we’d like to in rural areas,” he shared.
Ashton also noted repurposing costal connectivity technology for rural environments in Africa. “We use this for offshore coverage, but we have done some trials in a few countries, going onto the high mountains and try to create some supercells at 150 kilometres to 200 kilometres in diameter (coverage). You may not get that much speed at the cell edge, but you get big coverage,” he enthused.
Lastly on the connectivity side, and a solution that is relevant when it comes to education in rural environments is fixed wireless access (FWA).
“If you think back to COVID, children potentially lost up to two years of school, so to help there, a solution we see as being cost effective is fixed wireless. You use 5G is the backhaul to school, let’s say, and we have a device if you can reduce the tariffs on them, that can be a great solution for rural, because it’s not going to be cost effective to do fibre, not for the last mile anyway,” he asserted.
More than transacting
Shifting to the future and technologies where Ericsson sees lots of potential and Ashton immediately mentioned mobile money.
As we know fintech solutions are thriving in South Africa and Africa, with mobile transactions quickly becoming the best possible method to get money from one place to another, or simply purchase what you need on a daily basis.
“What we see as a future is something called programmable networks. This is tied to the other technology we’re looking at in mobile money. It is a uniquely African solution, and it is really the only other way that’s come across to monetise mobile connectivity outside of SMS and data, but it’s also about financial inclusion for the unbanked. What we have noticed over the past 10 to 15 years, and particularly for women, is that it’s a great tool for inclusion in society,” he explained.
“I bring this up as programmable networks are particular relevant to Africa. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will come,” he posited.
Here Ashton noted that African operators find themselves in a more unique situation than other parts of the globe, purely because they not only have what’s in the typical mobile network’ but they have the mobile money solutions built in too.
Illustrating a potential use case, the VP said, “Let’s say you’re driving rural area, it’s raining and you get into a small accident. Let’s say, you want to make an instant insurance claim. Well you’ll say, ‘I got a crash in the rain, I’m in this location’. So from the mobile network, you can find out the location if you have access to APIs and the program report from the mobile network,” he outlined.
“You can find out if it was raining because of the attenuation of the microwave, with your phone you can take a picture of the damage and then you can go on mobile money and put through your claim and immediately get the money back,” he continued.
There are any potential services that programmable networks and mobile money can make possible too in Ashton’s view.
“It could also be relevant for emergency services from the mobile network. You can get the location and they can find out what the traffic situation is because they’ll be able to go in and see how many devices are in the area, what’s the congestion on the network and then can instruct the ambulance of where to go,” he added.
For me using those assets to create more value in the network is where that’s going,” concluded Ashton.
While it may not be a topic of conversation at next year’s Africa Tech Festival, Ericsson could soon be presenting on programmable networks and how mobile money is delivering more value locally on the continent.
