Friday August 16, 2024
By DOMINIC OMONDI
A worker lays a fiber optic cable.
Djibouti's status as the only country in Africa where China has an overseas military base appears to have brought other benefits.
Massive Chinese ICT investment in Djibouti has helped the country become the region's digital hub, overtaking economic powerhouses Ethiopia and Kenya.
A new World Bank report cites a study by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that shows Djibouti had the highest internet connectivity in the region at the end of last year, with 69 percent of the population online.
Djibouti, with a population of about 1.1 million, reported connectivity above the global average of 65 percent—and well ahead of Kenya's 29 percent and Ethiopia's 17 percent.
Much of Djibouti's ICT infrastructure, the report notes, has been built by China.
“China plays a key role in financing communications infrastructure in Djibouti, with Djibouti Telecom partnering with Chinese firms such as Huawei,” the World Bank report said.
Huawei is at the forefront of some of the transformative technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as 5G and artificial intelligence, both of which are proving critical in modern warfare.
The World Bank study, entitled "Leveraging Private Sector Investment in Digital Communications Infrastructure in Eastern Africa", looked at 11 countries in Eastern Africa to assess their readiness to attract foreign investment.
Djibouti, strategically located at the junction of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Eden and the Indian Ocean on the Europe-Asia maritime route, is becoming a "theatre of great power competition" between China and the United States, two of the most powerful nations.
The US, whose military base is about 10 kilometres from China's, has also pumped money into Djibouti's digital communications infrastructure. The World Bank report notes that Djibouti Telecom, the state-owned service provider, has a significant joint venture with BringCom, a US-based communications technology provider.
The joint venture, called Djibouti Teleport, provides IP connectivity and international backhaul services for aeronautical and maritime satellite services. But it is China, which established a military base in the port nation at the mouth of the Red Sea in 2017, that is playing an outsized role in transforming Djibouti into a digital hub.
China's heavy investment in Djibouti's ICT infrastructure could be due to the importance the world's second-largest economy attaches to the military facility it has in the country, according to Dr Oscar Otele, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and a researcher on China-Africa relations.
Djibouti's strategic location is crucial for the country's undersea fibre-optic cables, which are laid on the ocean floor and used to transmit data between continents. It is these fibre optic cables that allow people to communicate via the internet.
As of 2023, Djibouti was hosting nine landing points, with more expected, according to the World Bank report.
The submarine cables to Africa and Europe pass through Djibouti, making it perhaps the most connected country in the world, according to Ben Roberts, CEO of Kenya Data Networks.
Djibouti has set its sights on becoming a global digital hub.
“Investment in submarine cables has enabled us to build a structure on which we can now capitalise. The country can develop a digital economy, with the installation of start-ups and data centres. In the future, I think traffic will explode,” Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, director of international business at Djibouti Telecom, told African Business magazine.
However, although Djibouti is relatively well connected, with the status as the largest fibre-optic hub in the region, services are less affordable than in Ethiopia and Kenya. The World Bank says this reflects a lack of competition in the domestic sector.
“We need to improve the price of electricity to become more competitive. Today, its 23 cents per kWh, which is enormous,” Mr Mohamed told African Business.
Nevertheless, the proportion of the population using the internet is slightly above the global average, suggesting a population with a high appetite for internet access, the World Bank said.
But some observers have questioned the accuracy of the connectivity figures, pointing to the fact that the data comes from an impartial regulator.
One of the consultants involved in writing the ITU report noted that the government's figures were out of line with many other previous studies, most of which did not cite Djibouti as a "high flyer in terms of internet penetration".
The consultant put Djibouti's users of LTE (Long-Term Evolution), a fourth-generation (4G) wireless standard that offers increased network capacity and speed for mobile phones and other cellular devices, at 365,000 out of a population of 1.1 million.
“So, this is an issue of the Telecom regulator reporting to ITU,” the consultant said.
Since the figures come from a state-owned monopoly, there is a high probability that the figures will be massaged, Roberts added.
But Djibouti's high urban population concentration is another possible explanation for the high internet connectivity, experts say.
On the cost of internet, the World Bank study showed that Kenya and Ethiopia had cheaper internet compared to Djibouti.
The study found that by the end of 2023, a typical Kenyan spent 1.97 percent of their gross national income per capita on 2GB of data.
Kenya was followed by Ethiopia (2.42 percent), Rwanda (2.46 percent), Somalia (5.11 percent) and Djibouti (6.58 percent).
Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Burundi had 8.78 percent, 8.95 percent, 9.04 percent and 12.59 percent respectively.
In South Sudan, 2 GB of mobile data takes 32.5 percent of a typical consumer's average monthly income.