TechCentral reports that the number of video-on-demand (VOD) subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa will grow by one million in 2014, despite the lack of broadband infrastructure in the region. This is according to findings published in Deloitte’s “Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions 2014.’
Most of these new subscribers will receive their VOD-based services, not over broadband connections but over traditional satellite television services, which will push and store VOD content on products like MultiChoice’s DStv Explora personal video recorder (PVR).
The report further reports that most viewers in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to an unlimited selection of VOD titles online, and will instead select their programmes from the more limited offerings pushed and stored to their PVRs.
“This user behaviour will be the equivalent of that taking place in millions of broadband-equipped homes around the world,’ Deloitte says. “However, in sub-Saharan Africa, VOD content will play back from digital video recorders and the files will have been distributed principally via satellite links, and for a few households via digital terrestrial transmission.’
The report notes that only one per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa have access to fixed broadband. For this reason, sub-Saharan Africa has, until now, “not participated in the wave of VOD adopting,’ which has taken place in around the world.
“At their peak in the 1970s and 1980s, copper networks were never extensive, and following the liberalisation of most markets in the 1990s, capital poured into mobile infrastructure, leaving fixed infrastructure on the sidelines,’ the report adds. The relative prevalence of mobile infrastructure – the report states that mobile broadband has 13 percent penetration on the continent – the prices of mobile services in Africa are around 50 times those in Europe. This, combined with the limited reach and capacity of the continent’s broadband makes it unsuitable for “bandwidth-hungry services like VOD’.
But there is still a demand for VOD, especially in South Africa and Nigeria – whose citizens make up more than 50 per cent of the continent’s consumer spending. “In these countries, and in a growing number of wealthier capital cities across the continent, there is considerable buzz about the availability of VOD services in developed countries. Satellite and DVRs can provide a solution that replicates a VOD experience.’
Until such time as broadband services have been rolled out more extensively on the continent, Deloitte’s report says, VOD services will have to operate within the infrastructure that already exists. Apparently this will not be an obstacle for around one million Africans eager to adopt the service this year. This prediction may indicate that, were broadband infrastructure to be made more extensive and cheaper on the continent, VOD and other broadband-related services would be likely to see an exponential increase in subscribers.
