Two steps forward, one step back

 In 1993, only 16 African countries had mobile networks and none of them had any competition. Today, all 55 countries have mobile networks, and 44 of them are operating in competitive markets.

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2007 Africa Competitiveness Report, nearly half of Africa’s telecom service providers have at least some private-sector ownership, with 25 fixed-line operators wholly or partially privatised over the past ten years or so. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad: Africa still  has the greatest number of monopoly service providers of any region worldwide.

Some progress in Kenya, though. After years of dithering, it now looks like the government intends to sell a 40% stake of fixed-line monopoly holder Telkom Kenya, most likely to a consortium led by British Telecom. If BT succeeds, it will need to re-brand Telkom, long synonymous with inefficiency and corruption. How else to explain the fact that the country now has over 9m mobile phone owners and less than 300,000 people with a fixed line service?