ECOWAS‘S INFRASTRUCTURE: A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE incumbent) has had a monopoly over the landing station and has not offered cost-based wholesale rates to the ISPs to connect to SAT3. The high prices reflect the monopoly over the landing station. In contrast, Senegal which has a monopoly with a social orientation in the international gateway, has lower prices than Nigeria.

To attain connectivity between all capital cities in the the region, ECOWAS member countries will have to add 1905 kilometers of new fiber optic links. Achieving the minimum levels of regional connectivity will require investments in several countries. The levels of investment required in each case are very modest in absolute terms (table 4.7).

**Table 4.6  Prices of Internet and phone calls in Sub-Saharan Africa, with and without access to submarine cables**

||Price per<br>minute for a call<br>within Sub-<br>Saharan (US$)|Price per<br>minute for a call<br>to United<br>States (US$)|Price for 20<br>hours of dial-up<br>Internet access<br>per month ($)|
|---|---|---|---|
|No access to submarine cable|1.34|0.86|67.95|
|Access to submarine cable|0.57|0.48|47.28|
|Monopoly international gateway|0.7|0.72|37.36|
|Competitive international gateway|0.48|0.23|36.62|
|Source: AICD calculations||||

In addition to the cost of achieving intraregional connectivity, the ECOWAS region, combined with Central African countries, will have to spend $1 billion to install the Infinity, GLO-1, and WAFS systems needed to provide intercontinental connectivity (table 4.8). While this investment is larger than that required in any other regional community, the bulk of the investment relates to submarine cables and will be funded by the private sector.

**Table 4.7  Gaps in intraregional connectivity and total investment required to attain minimum levels of regional connectivity**

|Country<br>Gaps(km)|Cost|
|---|---|
|Burkina Faso<br>218|6|
|Côte d'Ivoire<br>93|3|
|Ghana<br>210|6|
|Guinea<br>288|8|
|Guinea Bissau<br>113|3|
|Liberia<br>382|10|
|Niger<br>75|2|
|Nigeria<br>200|5|
|Sierra Leone<br>326|9|
|Total<br>1905|51|
|Source: Dervied from Mayer and other|s 2009.|

The benefits of completing regional integration of ICT Guinea 288 networks would be substantial in relation to the modest costs. Guinea Bissau 113 Experience from other African countries, suggests that Liberia 382 connecting a country to a submarine cable via a competitive Niger 75 arrangement for landing stations can bring down the costs of Nigeria 200 broadband Internet by as much as 75 percent (box 4.1). Not only Sierra Leone 326 would this bring substantial savings to existing users of Total 1905 broadband, but the substantial price reduction could be expected Source: Dervied from Mayer and others 2009. to induce additional uptake of service. The overall benefits of completing the regional integration agenda can be estimated to be $120 million per year for ECOWAS, compared with costs of only $51 million to complete the backbone connectivity. This investment leads to an attractive rate of return of 235 percent for the regional community as a whole (table 4.9). The bulk of the benefits derive from the addition of new broadband users, making regional integration a positive business prospect for broadband service providers.

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