As the continent grapples with the high cost of laying infrastructure to connect its people, many industry players have campaigned for the infrastructure sharing model to expand reach for most companies.

Speaking at the sidelines of the Fiber To The Home (FTTH) Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, Liquid Telecom Group CEO Nic Rudnick said that ultimately infrastructure sharing should not hurt players in the industry.

"Our network has always been built as an open access network so it is available for anyone to use. It is our philosophy because we wanted to encourage the smaller ISPs to expand their business, use our infrastructure to service their customers in a way they wouldn't be able to do on their own," Rudnick told ITWeb Africa.

He added that the company has experienced forced infrastructure sharing in a couple of countries they are in. "We have seen in a small number of countries that there is an effort to force compulsory sharing of infrastructures."

Rudnick said "Infrastructure sharing on a non-commercial basis like compulsory provision of components of the infrastructure and at lower prices than it cost to build it, one can only wonder why that kind of policy is being implemented."

He explained that in some instances corruption becomes part of the game because such policies are seen as having no economic value and are ultimately designed to allow other players to use infrastructure at a lower cost, ending up hurting the company that laid it.

"I think that kind of sharing infrastructure is important because we don't want to drive out the entrepreneurial and innovative companies that have been the foundation of the internet in Africa. I think if that is done with the right policies and on a commercial basis it's workable," Rudnick suggested.