CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (NOVEMBER 18, 2008) REUTERS -
Experts at a telecommunications conference in Cape Town say
Africa is one of the world's fastest growing markets.

African telecommunications conference gets underway with regional
heavyweight Vodacom expecting to invest heavily in African expansion after
unbundling from South Africa's Telkom.

More than 3,000 telecommunications industry players attended the
11th AfricaCom conference in Cape Town, South Africa. The two day conference
which opened on Tuesday (November 18) brought together 220 different operator
companies from across Africa.

Also in attendance were investors, regulators, satellite providers,
network and infrastructure equipment providers, service providers, consultants
and analysts.

Chairman of GSM Africa Vitalis Olunga, who was at the conference, noted
that Libya and Nigeria are one of Africa's fastest growing markets. GSM
Africa, the African arm of the world body GSM Association is expected to
increase its subscriber base to 316 million by the end of this year.

"The fastest growing market in this area is Libya, we have got
Nigeria which is growing very fast. Mainly, I would say generally, if I don't
even go by each and every country. Those which opened their markets later
after the others are the fastest growing because for them to grow,
liberalisation plays a big role, a very big factor," said the Vitalis
Olunga, Chairman of GSM Africa.

Analysts say Africa is one of the world's fastest growing
telecommunications regions, with about 235 million people already using cell
phones in the sub-Sahara region alone, and operators scrambling to connect an
estimated 500 million potential customers on the continent.

"At the moment, I would say the greatest challenge that we have
now is the infrastructure to support mobile. Mobile is not everything. We also
need other backbone and also another one is power, power is also an issue
because it is very costly to operate in the rural areas. Electricity is an
issue and that one is a challenge to most of the operators," added
Olunga.

France Telecom who recently launched their Orange mobile
telecommunications brand in Kenya says it still sees Africa as a lucrative
frontier market despite the global financial crisis. The company's executive
vice president for the Middle East and Africa, Marc Rennard, said the
financial squeeze may make life difficult next year but he is confident of
healthy demand.

"First, our first priority is to develop our presence where we
are. And on the other hand we are looking at new targets because the growth in
Africa will remain high even despite the crisis, the economic crisis, it will
perhaps be more difficult in 2009, but the growth is there because the demand
is there. So we have every country in West Africa, in Central Africa, in east
part of Africa can be a target if we have a fair solution, a fair proposal to
study," said Rennard.

MTN Nigeria's communications manager, Paul Onu, however noted that
despite the developments, Africa is still lagging behind other parts of the
world like Europe, largely due to problems such as a lack of proper
infrastructure.

The MTN Group now boasts a subscriber base of about 80 million in
Africa.

"Compared to Europe, Europe is ahead of us. So we are struggling
with some factors that over there in Europe, they have overcome and they are
moving forward. So there are a lot of challenges, infrastructure is a big
challenge. There are so many projects we would have loved to implement but due
to their effect on the network, we dropped them," said the MTN
communications manager in Nigeria, Paul Onu.

Others at the conference were more optimistic. Edward Derksen is chief
technical officer for Acision, a company that provides communications
solutions for network operators and service providers.

"From a seller point of view, I see the African continent as a
really upcoming market where also the demands is more innovative services,
especially dedicated for the mass market, and that's a different market for
even the China market is or the Indian market," Derksen said.

Over 160 telecom solutions companies also held exhibitions showcasing a
wide array of solutions to make Africa's telecommunications market more
dynamic and profitable.