By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/p>\n
The West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) is pushing forward with initiatives to promote infrastructure sharing among West African countries, aiming to reduce internet costs for telecom subscribers in the region.<\/p>\n
During a recent virtual meeting with stakeholders, WATRA Executive Secretary Mr. Aliyu Aboki unveiled plans to share critical infrastructure such as gateways and data centers across national borders. Aboki emphasized that this collaborative approach could significantly lower the high cost of internet in West Africa, which in turn would stimulate the digital economy and increase data consumption, generating more revenue for telecom operators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are exploring regional initiatives to share infrastructure and reduce costs. For instance, infrastructures like gateways and data center servers can be shared by different countries without each building their own,\u201d Aboki explained.<\/p>\n
Aboki highlighted the current lack of interconnectivity as a major factor driving up telecom costs. Presently, content hosted in one African country often must pass through Europe to be accessed in another African country, due to unconnected data centers within the region. This roundabout routing significantly increases the expense of internet access.<\/p>\n
One of WATRA\u2019s key programs is to promote direct interconnectivity among West African countries. Although data centers are emerging in various nations, the absence of regional interconnection necessitates routing through submarine cables to Europe and back, adding substantial costs. Establishing direct regional interconnectivity would drastically reduce these expenses.<\/p>\n
Additionally, WATRA is collaborating with national regulators to enhance universal service policies and improve rural connectivity. This effort aims to extend the benefits of internet access to underserved and remote areas, further integrating the region’s digital landscape.<\/p>\n
Aboki underscored the positive impact of improved internet connectivity on the sub-region’s economy. Increased internet penetration, mobile connectivity, and a tech-savvy youth population have driven rapid growth in West Africa\u2019s digital economy, which currently contributes about $30 billion annually to the region\u2019s GDP. The West African telecommunications market is now valued at $63.17 billion, with over 400 million mobile subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emmanuel Ogbodo The West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) is pushing forward with initiatives to promote infrastructure sharing among West African countries, aiming to reduce internet costs for telecom subscribers in the region. During a recent virtual meeting with stakeholders, WATRA Executive Secretary Mr. Aliyu Aboki unveiled plans to share critical infrastructure such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38886,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38885\/revisions\/38886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}