The telecommunications industry in Africa has been drastically improving over the last couple years due to the increased privatization.  As stated by Dedham "high profile privatization's have already taken place in Guinea, Ghana, Senegal, Cootie d'Ivoire and South Africa". ("Africa's glass: Half Full, Half Empty, Ever Optimistic"; Dedham, June 1998).

Telecommunications in Guinea was for a very long time under the government sole management and control.  However, the government realized that the sector needed to be deregulated in order to develop.  In an interview by the Guinescope Magazine, the ministry of Telecommunications said that  “I think that people cannot be interested in a country until it assures them of the means of communications”.  He also added that “It needs a viable communications network, in order to open the country to foreign investment. ("Guinea at the Dawn of the Third Millennium"; Channel Cole; 1997). This clearly indicates that the government in Guinea is very committed to improving the telecommunications sector.

In 1989, the Guinean government established a committee whose objective was to restructure the sector and identify ways to improve it.  In 1991, a new sectoral policy for the telecommunications sector was created.  In an interview with Ipanet, the minister of Communications explained that the objective of this new policy is to give telecommunications a dominant role in the country's economy and to facilitate the economic growth and social integration of local communities. (Ipanet). To achieve its economic goal, the new policy also divided the telecommunications sector into two different areas: the regulation of the sector to be handled by the government, and its improvment and management to the handled by an independent agency.  The independent agency in question became Telecom Malaysia when it acquired 60% of the national PTO.

The Guinean government should be applauded for the strong support and commitment it extends to the development of the country's Telecommunications systems. Guinea is one of the most liberalized telecommunication Industry in Africa. As of matter of fact, Guinea's Sotelgui is one the first PTTs in Africa to be owned and controlled primarily by a foreign company with the permission of the government. Sotelgui is 60% owned by Malaysia Telecom and 40%, while the government of Guinea only controls 40%. Further, Spacetel-Guinea (one of the 3 cellular services providers) is owned 100% by an Israely company, while Telecel-Guinea (another cellular provider) is owned 90% by Telecel International.

The Government has always considered improving Telecommunications as one of its priorities, knowing that the development of the country strongly depends on both opening the country to the outside world, connecting it worldwide and improving the education level among other conditions required to attract foreign investment.  The government is also trying to improve Telecommunications, mainly the Internet, to allow it to provide information both to the Guineans and the outside world.  For instance, the ministry of Information is currently negotiating a contract with the CIDA's Electronic Commerce World Institute to establish a web site providing government, business and tourist information to the general public.

The privatization of telecoms in Africa has been increasing at a fast pace.  According to the ITU, 5 PTOs were privatized in 97 and and about 17 PTOs have at least some degree of privatazation through partnership with foreing companies.

Another country with a very liberalized Telecommunications sector is Ghana, whose government has actively promoted the liberalisation of telecoms and whose Internet market is now one of the largest in Africa. ("Internet is the Driver"; Dedham, 1999).  In contrast to most African countries, Ghana is one of the few that does not have a national Internet backbone. Instead, the country has three independent commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that connect to the US.  The Ghanian government also encourage competition in all domain, which gave rise to a large number of small business providing access telephone services and internet connections.

The country with the largest Internet community is Kenya with an estimated number of users around 25,000.  This is remarkable progress for the country given that four year ago Kenya had some of the most restrictive regulations. One of its  legislation used to stipulate that all Internet services must be 70% owned.  Also, part of its regulations included a requirement for third party services to obtain a license and a provisional fee for 5 years, to which several ISPs protested. (Internet is the Driver"; Dedham, 1999).

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Last updated: 12/18/99