A recently updated report has revealed the tremendous opportunities for content delivery networks (CDNs), cloud services and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in Africa’s ever-expanding connectivity landscape.

TeleGeography, a leading telecoms market intelligence and research provider, highlights significant developments in the African telecoms network infrastructure landscape and the resultant traffic patterns. This will benefit CDNs, cloud and SaaS providers’ African deployment strategies.

One of the key findings is the substantial increase in transit route capacity across the continent and the growth of intra-African traffic. More digital content is being serviced within Africa than ever before and at a rapidly growing rate.

The expanded capacity in both subsea cables and terrestrial fibre has translated into large IP bandwidth growth, price declines in bandwidth, growth in localised data centres and, as a result, enhanced connectivity and improved user experiences. In summary, a healthy, growing telecoms ecosystem that enables CDNs, cloud services and SaaS providers to serve new customers within sub-Saharan Africa reliably.

Subsea cable, terrestrial fibre and data centre investments are making Africa the top-growing bandwidth market globally, with projected compound growth of 42% between 2022 and 2029. This is surpassing the global average projections of 32%. Content providers have experienced 80% compound annual growth rates in African bandwidth between 2018 and 2022.

Introducing new submarine cable systems is expected to increase capacity for coastal and landlocked countries, increase the number and size of intra-African routes, decrease transit prices along key African routes, and boost localised digital content growth.

Regional hub

The report highlights that despite the historical internet traffic routes from Europe to Africa, South Africa has become a growing regional hub for intra-African internet capacity, with the percentage of traffic servicing sub-Saharan Africa becoming more intra-African than the traditional service from Europe.

As internet exchange points, CDNs, points of presence and data centre construction spark the growth of new ecosystems on Africa’s shores, the internet edge moves ever closer to African end users, with significant transit hubs in Africa assuming prominence over Europe.

Intra-Africa capacity within sub-Saharan Africa being serviced from South Africa has exploded between 2016 and 2022, with compound growth of over 50%/year. South Africa is entrenching its position as the content hub for Africa.

“Teraco is serving 26 African countries, and as the demand for reliable and scalable digital infrastructure continues to surge, we remain committed to supporting these providers in expanding their presence across the region,” says Teraco head of platforms Michele McCann.

“With these substantial bandwidth investments, CDNs, cloud services and SaaS providers can unlock unprecedented growth opportunities in Africa’s evolving digital landscape by leveraging Teraco’s state-of-the-art facilities, deep ecosystems and our position as the hub of Africa’s digital infrastructure.”

Teraco is strategically positioned with access to subsea cable systems on the east and west coasts of Africa, with over 350 telecoms operators, global cloud on-ramps and enterprises, ensuring that Teraco clients have multiple interconnection options and valuable data flows, and creating more opportunities for innovation.

“With increased transit route capacity, forecasted bandwidth growth, improving pricing dynamics, a flourishing content ecosystem and the evolving data centre landscape, service providers need to look no further to extract immense potential and establish a successful presence in the African market,” she says.

The full African network geography update by TeleGeography can be accessed on the Teraco website.

About TeleGeography
TeleGeography is a leading provider of telecoms market intelligence and research. With a focus on global connectivity, the company offers valuable insights into network infrastructure, international capacity and pricing trends. TeleGeography’s reports and data products are trusted by industry professionals worldwide to make informed business decisions.

About Teraco
Teraco, a leading carrier-neutral colocation provider in Africa, is the first provider of highly resilient, vendor-neutral data environments in sub-Saharan Africa. With its world-class data centre infrastructure and network-dense ecosystems, Teraco forms a vital part of the African internet’s backbone and is essential to the modern enterprise’s digital transformation strategy. Teraco is part-owned by Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) – offering customers a global data centre platform designed to enable digital businesses to scale within a highly connected data community across 300-plus data centres in 50-plus metros and 27 countries on six continents – and a consortium of private equity investors, including Berkshire Partners and Permira. For more information, please visit teraco.co.za or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.