Seventh edition prepared for Africa TELECOM in Cairo. The growth in telephone access in Africa has been largely fuelled by mobile cellular communications. The change has been so rapid that it has caught many by surprise. From just two countries in 1999, there were 43 African countries that had more mobile than fixed-line telephone subscribers by the end of 2003, more than any other region. The wireless boom has been caused by the combination of sector liberalization—which has seen the licensing of multiple cellular operators in most African markets—and service innovation in the form of pre-paid cards. Africa’s challenge is to sustain this high mobile growth and extend it to other sectors such as the Internet. The report documents the tremendous changes that have taken place within the space of a few years since the last edition in 2001.Mobile phones the talk of Africa as landlines lose out
