In addition to the recession, the nature of one- or two-year projects recently has contributed to spikes and troughs in the optical cable demand of developing economies. This has been evident in markets of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and parts of Asia. The UAE, for example had strong growth in cable imports in 2009 when its FTTH project was ramping up, but the trade data shows lower growth in 2010. Kenya and Nigeria had large projects completed in the past two years, resulting in a sharp decrease in cable demand. In some African markets, the fibre backbones have been funded at least partially by the wireless operators to provide terrestrial transport of the cellular traffic. Despite the negative growth in some markets, such as Kenya and Nigeria, the Africa's total cable demand increased due to other projects getting underway in 2010, especially in North Africa.
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