Monday 5th December 2022. Radio Innovation announces a far-reaching partnership with Stockholm based digital infrastructure company Radiocloud AB to jointly address the internet access challenge in Africa. Internet access and smartphone penetration on the African continent lag far behind the rest of the world. This partnership offers the promise of bringing high speed mobile broadband to over 30 million users in the next 24 months.
Measured by any metric most of the African Nations are far behind in the “Digital Divide”. While any significant penetration of optical fiber in local and urban networks is decades away, 4G and 5G networks offer the only viable option for the continent’s population to enter and participate in the digital economy. The lack of broadband in many Sub-Saharan and Sahel region countries has forced small businesses and administrative institutions to rely on slow 3G connections for internet connectivity. The past two years have witnessed the dramatic breakthrough of video conferencing, and a large-scale migration of business processes online. Most mobile networks on the African continent have not been able to cope with this trend shift.
Under this partnership, Radio Innovation will supply its world-leading high gain antennas to Radiocloud AB along with network planning and design services during 2023 – 2024. Radiocloud expects to roll out its first 4G networks in select countries in Sub-Saharan Africa starting early 2023 using Low-Band Dual-Stack and Quad-Stack solutions from Radio Innovation.
Anil Raj, CEO of Radiocloud AB says: “The math is simple for us, we expect to be able to reduce the number of sites needed by at least 60% to achieve the same coverage compared to existing solutions. For us that translates into lower costs and the ability to lower service fees that we charge our customers.” The big beneficiaries here are mobile subscribers who will experience higher data speeds and signal levels even in remote and rural areas.
“It is exciting for us to see a new breed of digital infrastructure companies emerge who are tackling the connectivity challenge in a holistic way and not just looking at selling SIM cards. We are confident that we can support them in reducing operating costs where the real winner will be the continent of Africa and its citizens,” says Dusyant Patel, CEO of Radio Innovation.
Radio Innovation Sweden AB
Radio Innovation is a unique and innovative communications infrastructure company, developing disruptive antenna solutions that help CSP’s (Communications service providers) or PN’s (Private Networks) cut CAPEX and OPEX up to 85%, making it profitable to cover even the most rural areas, with reliable and affordable mobile connectivity. The technology works by reducing the number of tower sites while using extremely efficient antenna technology. With less sites Radio Innovation dramatically reduces the environmental footprint while also enabling city areas to go higher in their capacity needs without the need for building new infrastructure, but by just replacing the antennas on the existing tower sites.
Radio Innovations mission is to give every individual an equal opportunity to be digitally included no matter where in the world they are.
Radiocloud AB
Radiocloud AB is a digital infrastructure company focused on building and operating shared passive and active telecom and data networking infrastructure in developing economies. Sharing infrastructure reduces financial risks and increases viability and profitability for network operators allowing them to focus on developing and providing new services to their customers.
Radiocloud works in close cooperation with mobile network operators, regulators and financial institutions to direct capital, resources, and technology to developing markets helping reduce barriers to entry and bridging access to the internet to underserved markets and communities.
