Just as it hampered the spread of electricity throughout the country, the civil war in Angola interfered with the construction of the telecommunications network. The government’s attention and resources were directed towards winning the conflict, and other projects had a lower priority.
As a result even now, nine years after the end of the war, the penetration of fixed telephone lines in Angola is extremely low, at 2 per cent.
A government decree in 1999 established independent regulator called the
Angolan Institute of Communications (
INACOM) to take over the duties of the National Post and Telecommunications Directorate. Since 2002, INACOM has overseen the opening of the market to competition, and the rapid growth of the phone system through government and company spending.
Indeed, one of INACOM’s biggest accomplishments was ushering in the new era of competition in Angola’s telecommunications sector. The new service providers have given the country a modern and growing network that uses the latest technology to connect people and facilitate business within Angola and abroad.
Whilst the ending of Angola Telecom’s monopoly on fixed telephony and the entry of four new competitors has helped spur competition and spread the use of landlines, the real action lies in mobile telecommunications.
In countries the size of Angola, with its 481,350 square miles, wiring a telecommunications network has always been difficult. With mobile technology, large areas can be given coverage much more cheaply and easily than with fixed lines.
Two companies currently provide mobile services in Angola.
Movicel, controlled by state-owned
Angola Telecom, is the smaller of the two providers. It has been operating since 2003 and has more than three million clients throughout the country.
Unitel began operations in 2001, and has some six million customers in the 110 districts of Angola where it now has coverage. The company recently achieved its goal to cover 150 districts accounting for about 90 per cent of the country’s population, and now aims to reach 7.3 million clients over the next few years.
The spread of mobile telephony has helped boost economic growth around Angola by improving communications, and economic growth has put more money into people’s pockets and spurred mobile phone usage, completing a virtuous cycle.
The 7.5 million Angolans with cell phones represent about 60 per cent of the population, meaning the scope for growth is still huge. The government is considering granting a third mobile license as a way to increase competition in the market.
Even as the use of mobile phones has soared, the government has not ignored the country’s fixed-line sector. When once there was just one telephone company, there are now five, some sharing the network that is operated by Angola Telecom and others also using wireless technologies such as WiMAX.
Work is under way to finish up a fibre optic network around the country as a backbone for fixed-line and internet use.
“This is where the state is mostly investing right now through a basic telecom infrastructure programme, which will install about 5,600 miles of fibre optic cable along the main roads to connect all provincial capital and main locations,” says Aristides Frederico Safeca, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications.
Another project that is vastly improving Angola’s telecommunications infrastructure is a multi-sectoral satellite system called Infrasat that permits telephone and internet services to be supplied to remote and sparsely populated areas of the country.
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