“With the new undersea cables and terrestrial fibre roll-out, as well as the satellite influx across Africa, we expect to see close to double-digits in terms of growth in the more mature markets over the next two to three years,” she added.

She attributed the growth to IT infrastructure developments, such as cable systems in East Africa that have boosted the region’s Internet use.

Undersea fibre-optic cable network operator Seacom recently announced that in 2012, it would upgrade its East African submarine cable and increase capacity to meet rising demand from the African continent.

Cederstrom says over the next two years, initiatives that would connect West Africa will rise in numbers, increasing the international bandwidth by triple digits.

“This infrastructure boost will lead to an increase in consumer and enterprise demand for broadband.

“Further, we predict that the improved connectivity in 2012 will boost the data business sector in Africa, creating jobs and faster return on investment,” she stated.

Also spurring data services use in Africa for 2012, is the prediction of further price drops during the year.

“Last year, the use of data services in South Africa grew by 28% and we believe that in the next two to three years, it will grow by up to 60%,” Cederstrom added.

 THE SMART YEAR 2012

In its recent report ‘The Smart Year 2012’ Frost & Sullivan states that owing to rising energy costs, the demand has become apparent for enterprises and consumers in the ICT sector to collaborate in 2012 in finding smarter, more energy efficient technology and adopting renewable energy as a means of reducing costs.

“We predict a higher adoption rate of cooling systems and solar energy in data centres in Africa in 2012” Cederstrom said.