Telecom26 can provide connectivity across the whole of Africa and our team is working on some very interesting and innovative projects there. This week we’ll take a look at what’s happening on the ground in Zimbabwe.

Earlier in the month, we discussed two African whys:

• why 5G won’t be coming to Africa any time soon and

• why many of our customers on the ground in rural Africa are more interested in our 2G and IoT capabilities than discussing distant future migration to 4 or even 5G.

However, as an innovative and fast-growing global operator, of course we are preparing our portfolio to meet demand for 5G from a variety of sectors.

Connecting Africa, our must-read news site about the African telecoms market, last week wrote a piece about how mobile data prices in Nigeria have dropped by 75% over the past five years. This is according to data from Research ICT Africa, a policy and regulation think-tank, which showed that the average price of 1GB of data in Nigeria has dropped from $11.15 in mid-2014 to $2.78 at the end of 2019.

Vessels of all sizes generate increasing data volumes, from IoT devices, on-board processes and applications, as well as personal communications devices. Managing this flow is increasingly complex – and can be costly if satellite is the only option. But not all data is time-critical. Telecom26 provides an advanced router that enables data transfer to be optimised, enabling access to terrestrial networks when in range and satellite while at sea. It controls data transmission and chooses the optimum path, based on application.

The well-respected and influential African telecom news site Connecting Africa recently wrote an interesting piece following an interview with Akinwale Goodluck, head of the GSMA’s operations in Africa, during which he said many things that we at Telecom26 thoroughly agree with:

Europe’s cargo ports are booming, but as the volume of freight increases and demands for IoT tracking grows so too do calls for digital transformation that will create the next-generation of ‘smart ports’. Find out what’s happening – and how we’re driving developments.