Eleanor Potter, YahClick

According to estimates by the African Development Bank, Africa’s population is expected to reach 2.4 billion by 2050. The New Climate Economy Report says by that same year, 1.35 billion Africans will be living in urban areas. While these figures can be used to justify investments in smart cities, and bring all manner of tech-enabled solutions to life, the flipside is that around a billion Africans will still live in less densely populated areas. But just because they don’t live in cities doesn’t mean they don’t want to access online services.

The challenge of providing broadband internet to rural areas is the economics of laying down fibre infrastructure to houses and businesses. Even the network operators of advanced mobile telecommunications services like LTE, 4G or 5G struggle to get the economics right to reach these far-flung users.