JOHANNESBURG, S. Africa: June 19 (Xinhua) — Sub-Saharan Africa governments must be committed to mass infrastructure improvement and investment in datacentre infrastructure to ensure the region’s further sustained economic growth, consulting firm BroadGroup said on Tuesday.
The development of datacentre infrastructure is vital to the growth of African economies, said BroadGroup, a leading datacentre consulting firm in the world, providing professional advice and research assistance.
Datacentre is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls and security devices.
BroadGroup has completed a new study of data centres in sub- Saharan Africa. “With governments committed to mass infrastructure improvements, datacentres will assume a prominent role in contributing to the region’s further sustained economic growth,” BroadGroup Senior Consultant Alex Preston said.
“As a result, we expect to see bandwidth costs falling in the coming years and the persistent issue of last mile redundancy addressed. With governments committed to mass infrastructure improvements, datacentres will assume a prominent role in contributing to the region’s further sustained economic growth,” he added.
BroadGroup has found that datacentre infrastructure is still lacking in many countries and that although South Africa leads with more than 50 datacentres and projected datacentre revenues of 481 million U.S. dollars by 2016, outside of Kenya and Nigeria, “there is a pressing need for new and efficient facilities”.
The consulting firm said private investment funds are underwriting the cost of selected fibre deployments across key metropolitan areas, subsea cable connectivity is significantly higher and seeing sustained development across the continent.
BroadGroup research also suggests that modular data centres may offer many African countries the fastest solution in terms of durability, cost and time to deploy.
To this end, BroadGroup is producing the first regional datacentre conference for Africa which will take place in Johannesburg from June 27to 28. The conference programme includes a review of modular deployment, Africa leadership panel, finance and investment in datacentres, energy and connectivity.
Key findings of the BroadGroup study will be presented at the event. “With the arrival of the undersea cable and proposed BRICS cable, the region is now benefiting from greater connectivity than ever before,” Preston said. “As a result, we expect to see bandwidth costs falling in the coming years and the persistent issue of last mile redundancy addressed,” he added.
BroadGroup has a growing International presence in emerging markets including central Europe, the Middle East, and in Asia and Pacific. (Xinhua)
