ITW Africa Agenda

Despite Africa’s mature tower market, tenancy ratios are varied and below European and US averages. How are towercos preparing their portfolios to drive free cashflow and organic tenancy growth through colocations?

• Impact of MNO densification strategies on tenancy ratios
• How ready are towerco networks for multiple tenants?
• The need for greater visibility and monitoring on multi-tenant sites
• Managing scaling energy demand for multiple tenants

By 2050, Africa is expected to have up to seven megacities with most of the population living in urban environments by 2033. With increasing urbanization combined with growing demand for access to connectivity and new technology, how does urban network design need to change to meet Africa’s urban coverage needs?

• Are macro towers alone sufficient to support MNO network needs?
• How does network and RF planning need to change with 4G densification as well as emerging 5G
• Do towercos need to widen their product offering to remain competitive for urban deployments?
• Barriers to urban deployment; backhaul and underlying infrastructure
• Cooperating with city councils, municipalities and regulatory authorities

2024 and 2023 were some of the toughest years for the African telecom tower industry on record. TowerXchange has assembled the four largest tower owners in Africa to discuss what’s next for growth, strategy, technology and performance heading in to 2025 and beyond.

• How have major challenges over the last 12 months impacted new strategic priorities?
• Is MNO financial health becoming a major concern? How are towercos supporting their customers?
• Cooperating with governments and regulators
• What opportunities are there for partnerships and joint-ventures with other infrastructure and service providers to generate greater value-add for customers?
• Is the outlook for 2025 a positive one?

Macro turbulence, currency exchange shocks, interest rate hikes and ramped inflation has inflated costs of capital and shaken up the sector. In this current climate, how do towercos need to rethink their operational strategy, maximizing returns on every drop of invested capital and squeezing out every drop of efficiency from their networks?

• What has the last 12 months revealed about inefficiencies or weak points in operational management?
• Is investing in cost-saving solutions the best way to maximise return on invested capital?
• Where are the opportunities for towercos to further reduce their network costs?
• How are MNO demands for transparent tenant billing and emissions reporting impacting the need for site visibility?
• Do towercos have the appropriate industry knowledge and expertise to deliver on big data automation?
• Is there an emerging use-case for AI?

East Africa is quickly becoming one of the continent’s most developed regions with strong GDP growth leading to rapid economic and social development. We explore how innovative strategies, collaborative approaches, and transformative technologies are driving demand for towercos in existing and new markets across Meetup Africa’s new home region.

• How are regional macro and market dynamics driving demand for telecom infrastructure?
• Collaboration from governments and regional organisations to standardise infrastructure sharing
• Where do towercos see new opportunities for regional expansion?
• Is Ethiopia the next major opportunity for towercos?

Towercos own 50% of towers in Africa with plenty of room for growth, but an update in carve-outs could indicate a shift in MNO strategy towards retaining value creation. Challenging conditions are also putting pressure on smaller towercos to either exit or merge to generate scale; where will the next wave of M&A come from?

• Is M&A still part of towerco expansion strategy?
• Do acquisitions offer better return on invested capital than organic builds?
• How MNOs are unlocking value through carve-outs
• Is now the time for towerco consolidation?
• Appetite for sale leasebacks with smaller, local MNOs

Africa needs around US$500bn in investments to achieve universal broadband access. Despite this gap, the downward economic cycle has made it hard to attract investment to the continent despite the huge infrastructure gap. How can the tower industry compete for a slice of the pie, and how do investors see opportunities?

• Investor appetites, how are investors selecting where to allocate capital?
• Where do DFIs see opportunities to deliver economic and social value?
• What role does private capital have to play in African towers?
• Will foreign capital continue to dominate investments?

This session is invitation only and accessible to towercos, MNOs and sponsors

Increased costs, depressed revenues and the pressure of greening the network is placing greater demand on tower networks to become as cost effective and efficient as possible. What technologies, tool and solutions will help drive the industry forward to minimize capex, opex and GHG emissions?

Join one of 6 open-format interactive discussion roundtables with a host of industry experts held under Chatham House rules.

1B: Country spotlight: South Africa 
Sandile Msimango, CEO, IHS South Africa 
Alan Parry, CEO, Orion Tower Company 

1C: Country spotlight: DRC 
Yannick Mvudi, Executive Head: Energy, Vodacom DRC 

1D: Regional spotlight: West Africa 
Belgacem Chriti, CEO, Amane Towers 
Koffi Fabrice Djossou, Senior Expert Digital Economy, West African Development Bank 

1E: What makes a true ESCO? 
Gabriel Bou Gabrael, GM ESCO Division, IPT Powertech 
Oliver Benham, Telecoms Operations Lead, Crossboundary 

1F: Fixed Wireless Access: the next big towerco tenant? 
Navi Naidoo, Board Member, NuRAN 

1G: Regulation and corporate governance in Africa 
Charis Jenkins, Senior Governance & Regulatory Affairs Manager Africa & Asia, SBA Communications 
Mark Lavi, Head of Legal, ATC Kenya 

Kenya's data centre market is predicted to reach $434 million by 2027, according to Arizton – how is this growth being achieved?

• What is the anatomy of a DC deal in Kenya?
• What are the hurdles to entry?
• How is the wholesale colocation market maturing?

Building and operating in the era of cloud computing is a constantly changing task. Ramping up of hyperscale presence and expansion of colocation facilities around the continent mean there are new opportunities for partnership to meet increased consumer demands, but the race is on to deliver. Big questions remain around the reality of capacity requirements, which companies will be building at scale, and how. This panel will discuss the following:

• What does cloud development look like in 2024; what do the panel expect to see in 2025?
• Will there be a shift to more wholesale-oriented markets?
• How will edge node and unified edge zone expansion play out?
• Who is investing in cloud? Will funding appetite change in the next 12-18 months?

Data centres are proven catalysts for economic development across the continent, however there is a problem. Africa accounts for 15% of the world's population, and yet only ~1% of data centres globally are situated on the continent. With the market anticipated to reach a valuation of $5 billion by 2026, tremendous growth is expected, but how is this potential being realised? This session will explore:

• What lessons can be learnt from other global markets?
• How can new data sovereignty rules pave the way for expansion and create a cloud-first connected environment ?
• What innovative connectivity partnerships are emerging?

Data centres are the most promising asset class, owing primarily to the enourmous demand – there will never be enough data centres in Africa. However, the current economic environment has seen investments come off the boil. The session will explore how clever and patient capital is crucial to data centre expansion:

• How does valuation pressure affect performance?
• What does the current FX environment mean for deals?
• How can operators build an attractive proposition for investors?
• What's driving investor positivity, and can it continue?

Various subsea and terrestrial fibre projects are providing direct and dependable connections to and between data centres, enabling low-latency use cases, and in turn ensuring intra-continent data exchange and storage. Coupled with the carrier-neutral model, a thriving ecosystem of local and international data centres and carriers interconnecting and exchanging traffic is growing, but is it growing quickly enough? This session will explore:

• What collaborative efforts between data centre operators and owners of subsea and terrestrial fibre are underway to connect the next billion?
• What level of investment is required, and where is it lacking?
• Is there a need for an open marketplace for connectivity and data centre services?

With the data centre market in Africa poised to grow at an unprecedented rate, getting it right when it comes to location is paramount. Navigating partnerships for invaluable local insights, the nuanced choice between greenfield and brownfield, and seizing opportunities to positively impact communities present strategic challenges. Ensuring scalability, understanding geographical factors, and navigating land leasing intricacies further complicate the terrain. The panel will explore:

• How is the site selection checklist evolving?
• What is being done to secure power for sites?
• How is interconnection point proximity impacting decision-making?

As data centre demand increases and becomes more complex, construction timelines are stretching, with builds taking up to 50% longer than planned. In order to deliver facilities designed to cope with the anticipated computing demands driven by AI, streaming, and cloud services, as well as meeting sustainability and CSR requirements, there's an imperative to build quicker and far more efficiently than before. This panel will address the following questions:

• How is macro environment volatility impacting materials supply? And what contingency strategies are being put in place to combat delays?
• Is modular becoming the new standard?
• What new technologies are being employed?

There are an estimated 40 to 50 live edge compute servers in Africa, and this is projected to increase by a factor of 10 in the next couple of years. The requirement for local data storage and the growth of time-sensitive applications such as Mobile money, telemedicine, and agritech are among the drivers fueling this edge requirement, demanding the processing of large volumes of data where the consumers are located. This session will discuss:

• What are the challenges on the route to success?
• Where next for significant edge deployments?
• How quickly will the market move to the edge?
• What opportunities can edge data centres unlock for the ecosystem?

Generative AI demand has ballooned, and the impact on the industry is clearly illustrated by Nvidia's announcement that their data centre revenues have risen over 400% on last year. Specifically for the continent, it is projected that AI will contribute an estimated $1.2 trillion to GDP by 2030, but applications are compute intensive and power hungry. In order to get it right and reap bottom-line benefits, data centre operators need to design and build for the future. This forward-thinking panel will navigate the challenges and share how to enable and harness the transformative potential of AI for sustainable growth in Africa:

• How are operators designing and building for the future?
• What trends and strategies are emerging regarding rack densities?
• How other enterprise use-cases such as blockchain and fintech impacting capacity planning?

Lack of clarity on national (renewable) energy generation and transmission investment plans, incomplete grid infrastructure maps, barriers to private generation and lengthy interconnection processes are just some of the key policy and regulatory challenges cited by African digital infra owners. As governments look to attract investment and close the digital divide, how can energy frameworks and markets be improved to support digital infrastructure rollout:

• What are some African nations doing well and where are others falling short?
• What lessons (and warning signs) from more developed markets can be applied to the continent?
• How can digital infrastructure owners best advocate for change and position themselves as part of the solution to Africa’s electrification challenges?
• What task forces and initiatives exist to tackle policy issues and how can the industry better collaborate?

Better quantification of the future shape and scale of Africa’s ICT ecosystem will aid energy regulators, grid operators and IPPs better prepare for meeting data centre and telecom network energy demands. This panel of experts will help paint a picture of how the energy demand is forecast to grow in Africa, where the growth will be felt, and what factors underlie these assumptions

Grid connections, virtual PPAs, direct investment in large scale energy projects, opex and capex led on-site generation, minigrids and more, a host of different options are available to digital infra owners to meet their energy requirements.

• What solutions are companies choosing for different scenarios and what is motivating their decisions?
• How mature and diverse is the IPP and ESCO landscape serving the African ICT sector?
• What key trends are being seen in contract structures between energy buyer and seller?
• How do company, customer and investor requirements to go green impact decisions?
• What sources of funding are available to invest in energy?
• Will the trends evolve in the future?

Currently 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, with distributed generation solutions required to address the challenge. Often located in remote areas lacking developed grid infrastructure, towers have the potential to serve as anchors supporting minigrid development, yet to date there has been limited deployment

All digital infrastructure owners are under pressure to go green from their customers, investors and own internal targets, but how feasible are different options and to what extent will the market move that way?

• To what extent can diesel generators be phased out and what might hold this back?
• What is the role for natural gas and low carbon fuels?
• What are African markets views on nuclear and could SMRs present a real opportunity for data centres?
• How are hydrogen supply chains shaping up, what does TCO look like, and what role do you foresee fuel cells playing?
•  Is lithium ion the only way to go for storage, or do alternative chemistries hold real promise?
• Where are the crunch points in local supply chains and how are these being addressed?
• How do reliability, serviceability, TCO and sustainability compete in decision making processes?

What tangible improvements are digital infra owners generating through the application of better monitoring, analytics, automation and AI/ML

• Case studies and examples of tangible results delivered and the key areas that infra owners are focussing on next
• How do digital infra owners envision AI playing a role and do they have the necessary data organisation and skill sets to adopt it?

Tough macroeconomic conditions, low ARPUs and escalating network costs have put pressure on capex and opex for towercos and MNOs. This panel discusses how towercos and their customers need to come back to the table to renew their relationships. 

• Have escalating costs made towercos too expensive?
• Rethinking towerco contracts to suit Africa’s current economic climate
• What more can towercos do to support MNO’s budgeting constraints?
• Planning for the next stage of contract renewals
• How is offering additional services a solution for MNOs?

Towercos have proven themselves as effective partners for MNOs to manage their passive tower infrastructure needs, but as technology evolves and operator CAPEX is stretched, where can towercos provide additional benefits beyond macro towers, keeping their customers happy and well-serviced?

• Do low African tower valuations make adjacent infrastructure a more viable option?
• Is FTTT the next step in ensuring towers remain attractive to MNOs?
• Is there a role for towercos in the datacentre space?

Network-as-a-service is proving itself as a viable alternative to fixed-lease contracts for rural coverage, supporting the commercial use-cases and driving MNOs into remote areas. What role to NaaS providers see themselves playing in Africa’s huge infrastructure gap, and does NaaS have a bigger role to play outside of rural frontiers?

• Pipeline of deployments across Africa
• What do investors need to know about NaaS?
• Delivering backhaul for rural networks
• Will network-as-a-service and Naascos stay on the rural frontiers?

As MNO coverage needs evolve, towers form one part of a variety of connectivity solutions from ground-based to stratospheric and satellite. How can these various actors collaborate to provide a holistic coverage solution for their customers, and will this be a partnership of cooperation or competition?

This session is invitation only and accessible to towercos, MNOs and sponsors

An invitation-only session inviting MSPs to discuss how they are supporting towercos with their organic and operational needs, ensuring supply chains remain resilient and exploring new services to keep Africa’ towers running.  

Join one of 6 open-format interactive discussion roundtables with a host of industry experts held under Chatham House rules.

2B: Country spotlight: Kenya 
Tom Muchiri, Country Manager Kenya, Atlas Tower 

2C: Country spotlight: Tanzania 
Tudor Samuila, Country Manager, Minara Tanzania 

2D: Country spotlight: Ethiopia 
Soumya Banerjee, Head of Infrastructure – East Africa, IFC 
Joram Mwati, Civil Works Manager, Safaricom Ethiopia 

2E: Country spotlight: Angola 
Antonio Nunes, Board Member, ANTOSC 

2F: Meeting Africa’s ever-expanding rural coverage demand 
Morenikeji Aniye, Founder & CEO, Hotspot networks 

2G: Optimizing Field Operations: Driving Cost Efficiency and Vendor Accountability with SCMS
Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech 
James Langat, Head - RNIO, Safaricom

• How are we enabling the transition from content consumption to content creation?
• What partnerships are developing between cloud and connectivity players?
• Strategic co-operation agreements to distribute cloud/digital solutions, land cables, and increase fibre connectivity

According to IFC and Google, Africa’s internet economy has the potential to contribute around $180 billion to GDP by 2025 – meaning an uplift of roughly $65 billion expected between now and this time next year. What is the shape of recent infrastructure investments, and will they be enough to close the gap and reach the potential? This session will explore:

• What asset class is most attractive over the next 3 years, and what are the demand drivers?
• How is the higher interest rate environment affecting access to capital for projects?
• What is the FTTH investment outlook?
• Will private equity exits drive further consolidation in the market?
• Is there scale outside of key markets?

• Does Africa have sufficient submarine connectivity?
• Price per gbps – what’s the outlook and the impact as an investment opportunity?
• System architectures of the cables around Africa
• Does the focus now need to be on terrestrial fibre links?

Cross-border projects are key to delivering interoperable, equitable, and open connectivity and bridging the digital divide. This requires collaboration and understanding of the varying regulatory, geographic, and cultural differences country-to-country. Investment also unlocks more fibre route diversity, and with more routes comes more competition, an environment conducive to faster digital transformation. The panel will explore:

• How are the challenging economics of NLD fibre projects being addressed? And are there extracommercial solutions?
• What are the pros and cons of infrastructure sharing? And will we see wider adoption?
• What revenue models allow for the best predictability?
• What’s the latest on fibre builds across Central Africa? And how can these be the route to unlocking competitive pricing?

• Route diversity and added redundancy
• Serving the un/under-served
• The journey to seamless connectivity

• How are operators managing the transition to net-zero whilst maintaining and delivering on high-level SLAs for customers
• What balance has been struck between modernisation and decommissioning of legacy technologies?
• How is full integration of net-zero targets and requirements across all business units and functions ensured?

Encounter the future - A tour of NBOX1 Data Centre in Nairobi and also experience the world’s most innovative gin, distilled with Juniperus Procera from Kenya. Transport will be provided from Radisson Blu reception at 4PM promptly, & back from venue at 7PM.

Register your interest here: iXAfrica Data Centre Tour Registration (office.com)

Strengthening the bankability of Africa's digital infrastructure projects demands close collaboration among project developers, policymakers, financiers, and other key stakeholders. This workshop will bring these players together through a fireside chat, roundtables, and an open feedback session. The focus will be on exploring financing solutions, addressing regulatory challenges, and establishing best practices for investments in green and secure digital infrastructure, ultimately accelerating industry growth.

• What are the proposed solutions to mitigate the impact of cable cuts?
• How much route diversification is required and realistic in the next 5 years?
• Cable repair, maintenance, and monitoring technologies and contingencies
• Is the back-up connectivity infrastructure sufficient?

• What is required to fix middle-mile and last-mile network infrastructure?
• How is new technology adoption being promoted?
• How is competition among service providers being spurred on?
• How are community relations navigated successfully?

• What's the latest on Ethiopia's telco market?
• How are regulatory environments improving?
• Is there sufficient human resource in the region?
• Cable landings update
• What does new Hyperscale presence unlock?

• How are indigenous African operators growing and competing in the wholesale voice and data markets?
• What challenges are encountered when delayering Netco/ServCo/InfraCo?
• What will the impact of AI be?
• What’s the criticality of software-defined networks to business evolution?
• How is the NaaS opportunity being realised?

• What is being done to encourage cooperation between government and industry?
• Is service affordability improving quickly enough?
• What is the extent of infrastructure upgrades required?
• What are the opportunities – partnerships etc.

• How are we bridging the digital gender gap and reaching parity in SSA?
• How can home-grown talent support the world’s connectivity?
• How is talent being incentivised across the board?
• How are mindsets changing around training?

• The role of MNOs and aggregators in providing Identity-as-a-Service
• What will be the impact of CPaaS?
• Which commercial models make sense for international providers in Africa?

• How to secure A2P revenues with current market shifts
• How are we fighting against traffic threats?
• Levaraging new communication channels such as RCS