Burkina Faso mobile data services cushioning ARPU

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Broadband is still very expensive in Burkina Faso, although various access options exist including ADSL, EV-DO, WiMAX and VSAT. Only low-end speeds are affordable to the general public, the pricing of packages in the Megabit range clearly aims at the business sector only.

Being landlocked, the country depends on neighbouring countries for international fibre bandwidth which has kept prices high (see our

recent article

on the BuddeBlog). Vast improvements in this area are expected from the arrival of a second international submarine fibre optic cable to the region earlier this year, with three more to follow in 2010 and 2011.

In the meantime, mobile data services are filling the gap. At about half the price of a dial-up connection, a subscription to a GPRS service makes sense. Market leader Zain has also launched EDGE which supports low-end broadband speeds, and it has seen its average revenue per user (ARPU) remaining constant throughout 2009 after falling continuously and almost halving over the past three years.

For more information, see:

Burkina Faso - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts

.

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