Johannesburg, 13 Nov 2025
The World Broadband Association's (WBBA) Broadband Development Conference (BDC) Cape Town 2025 was a success, bringing together over 150 officials, executives, and technology experts to discuss how to accelerate the continent's digital transformation through broadband infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI).
Held under the theme “Accelerating Africa’s Digital Leap With Broadband and AI,” the event served as a critical platform for exchanging insights on policy, innovation, and investment.
The core focus was on how robust fibre networks form the essential foundation for deploying AI solutions that can address unique African challenges and opportunities.
Martin Creaner, Director General of WBBA, gave the welcome speech, stating that the association was founded with the goal of supporting excellent broadband for everyone, everywhere.
Historically, a nation's economic performance has been based on factors such as high-quality roads, clean water, and reliable energy. Now, broadband quality is an extra requisite for any nation's prosperity.
The WBBA now comprises around 200 member companies from 60 countries across the world, and it has become the pre-eminent global broadband industry association. One of these joint WBBA collaboration initiatives includes defining the broadband roadmap for the coming decade
Exploring the technologies that will define next generation broadband and the long-tail of legacy copper and cable. This roadmap not only looks at the advances we will see in access speeds, but also the improvements we are likely to see in latency, availability, reliability, and security. It then maps these new network capabilities to the next generation of services that will run over these advanced networks.
In a keynote address, Solly Malatsi, South African Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, opened by reaffirming the national vision to be a leader in enabling a connected and digitally transformed country.
He stated that the mission of creating an inclusive digital society and economy is entirely dependent on the widespread deployment of high-bandwidth, low-latency fiber optics. He emphasised that broadband and AI is critical opportunity to change South Africa.
Dr Sunil Piyarlall, Executive of Openserve, said that broadband is the lifeblood of modern economies and it enables education, innovation, entrepreneurship, and digital participation.
He said: "For South Africa, and for the continent, the discussion is not simply about access, it is about quality, resilience, and equitable reach.
"The role of Openserve is to connect every South African home, business, and community with world-class broadband. Through Innovative solutions like Fibre-to-the-Room, we are shaping the next frontier of home and business connectivity – seamless, intelligent, and future-proof."
In a subsequent keynote, Bob Chen, President of Huawei Optical Business Product Line, delivered a speech titled "Accelerate the Development of Fibre Broadband, Facilitating Africa's Digital Leap".
He proposed that African operators continuously promote the development of home broadband and facilitate the digital leap by advancing through three phases.
The first phase focuses on fibre broadband coverage to quickly expand the user base. The second phase focuses on speed upgrading based on optical fibre advantages. During this phase, annual revenue per user keeps growing.
The third phase focuses on experience improvement by home network with high-quality Wi-Fi experiences to users, and exploring smart home services.
Chen believes that African operators can also follow this path to continuously promote the development of home broadband.
At the same time Huawei launched Southern Africa Fibre to the X (FTTx) Planning and Design Service Center to accelerate Africa FTTx development with 100+ experts.
The event culminated in the presentation of the Gigacity Certification, which honored the leading contributors to Africa's high-speed digital infrastructure, including Openserve South Africa, Safaricom Kenya, TTCL Tanzania, State Dept for Housing and Urban Development of Kenya.
The WBBA BDC has solidified its role as a highly influential platform for regional industry exchange, continuously contributing to the collaborative progress that underpins Africa's digital transformation.
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