Throughout the world, deep reforms are being implemented in telecommunications networks. Sub Saharan African countries are not immune to the contestation of the way the sector has been managed to date, dominated as it was by a technological stability and bilateral institutional arrangements between public monopolies. Four factors have contributed to a radical change: the need for a greater efficiency of the networks; the possibility to introduce competition through deregulation; technical and organisational innovations; and the narrow base of public funds available for the sectoral development. These driving forces are structuring the new landscape of the African telecommunication networks, leading notably to partial privatisation of the national incumbent operator, but also to a greater competition through the fixed as well as cellular mobile networks. All these changes should help to provide more services and to promote a much–improved quality. However this outcome requires the ...