African nations need to free up wireless frequencies while also speeding up the development of fixed line networks to cope with potentially high demand for mobile broadband, says Alcatel Lucent’s senior vice president Gabrielle Gauthay.

Gauthay, who was in South Africa last week as part of a visit for the global telecommunications company, has been meeting with governments and regulators to discuss ways of boosting broadband access on the continent.

Africa’s number of internet users has grown to 139 million, according to Internet World Stats. But this is just 13% of the continent’s one billion people.

Fixed line access on the continent is also poor, as a country such as Nigeria has 500,000 lines, inadequate for its 150 million people. South Africa’s fixed line market has also only been unbundled this decade to break away from the monopoly hold that Telkom had.

And in the absence of adequate fixed line networks, Africans have bought cell phones in large numbers. The continent has approximately 500 million mobile devices, research firm Booze & Company said earlier this year.

Having a mobile phone could be the only way for many to access the internet in Africa, presenting needs to open up more wireless frequencies to cope with the potential high demand for broadband, says Gauthay.

"In many countries in Africa, broadband is primarily going to be wireless,” Gauthay says.

“What is crucial for that is what kind of spectrum allocations you need," she adds.

Gaining access to that spectrum for telcos, however, has been challenging, says Gauthay.

The 700 MHz frequencies, which operators prefer because they have stronger signals, are typically used by broadcasters who have more political capital than telco companies.

Operators are also less inclined to buy more frequencies, owing to governments taxing them heavily and placing requirements on them to roll out services to rural areas, which increases the operators’ costs.

However, Gauthay says opportunities exist today to circumvent these issues, as the introduction of digital broadcasting on the continent is capable of having six channels on a single band.

Distributing those bands could be done differently too, as operators could buy up the bands as part of a consortium to cut down on costs, while also ensuring that even rural areas have access to mobile services.

Gauthay says countries such as Kenya are adopting this approach.

"A lot of governments are stepping in, not so much to crowd out private investment, but to help private investment reach out to the less dense areas in a more timely manner," Gauthay says.

Fixed line networks, which transfer bandwidth from undersea cables such as Eassy and Seacom to inland areas, are also needed.

Countries, such as South Africa, are already putting measures in place to address this last mile connectivity issue.

Tertia Smit, an analyst for BMI TechKnowledge in South Africa, says,“The dynamics of the national backhaul have been shaken with the introduction of commercial services from Broabdand Infraco.”.

Smit adds that the DFA’s first national long distance route in 2011 and competition from the co-build network – headed up by Neotel, Vodacom, MTN, SANRAL – and the FiberCo network will start to be felt in 2012. Meanwhile, the metro areas have seen thousands of km of fibre deployed by Telkom, DFA and others allowing FTTC and FTTP to become more of a commercial reality.

"Broadband is mainly first going to be wireless. But even if it is wireless, it is going to need backhaul," says Gauthay.

"The future of wireless is also going to be wire-line."