Currently around 80 percent of all of Africa's voice and data traffic is carried by satellite, but this figure is likely to fall as the continent increases fiber links at all levels. The balance of traffic is almost all carried by the continent's only current international fiber link, SAT3.

Based on use of its international traffic database, the report estimates that on the basis of the progress of current plans and with favorable pricing adjustments on the SAT3 fiber, just over 30 percent of the total market in three years time will be carried by fiber, according to the African Satellite Markets report.

Why is this transition likely to be so slow given that fiber is cheaper than satellite for high-volume traffic? There are a number of factors:

-- The slow speed of competitive national backbone roll-out: It has taken Nigeria five years to get to a point where Nitel is supplying sufficient national backbone connections to SAT3 that there is now a rising flow of traffic on to the SAT3 cable. By contrast, Telkom completed this work prior to the cable opening, and now carries the majority of its traffic over the fiber link.

-- The lack of inter-country links: Although both SAT3 and the proposed EASSy cable connect coastal cities there are relatively few cross-border links in place. Kenya has two sets of links being built to Nairobi by KDN and Telkom Kenya and a link is being built from Kenya to Rwanda. But other parts of the 'land-side' infrastructure are at a much earlier stage. For example, Zamtel has just announced its intention to build its connection to EASSy. And in one case ' Zimbabwe ' the transition has gone backwards: Telkom SA financed a fiber link to the country, but TelOne failed to meet the payments, so is now sending its traffic via satellite.