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Limited investment, digital illiteracy hinder Internet use in Africa

Saturday May 20 2017
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Experts say limited government investment, high costs and digital illiteracy will continue to lock out millions of people in Africa from accessing the Internet. FOTOSEARCH

Limited government investment, high costs and digital illiteracy will continue to lock out millions of people in Africa from accessing the Internet, according to experts who attended the recently concluded Transform Africa Summit in Kigali.

“Governments in sub-Saharan Africa should use the same rigor they use for defence funding to invest in the Internet as the private sector cannot do this alone,” said Goodluck Akinwale, the head of Global Systems Mobile Association (GSMA), sub-Saharan operations.

He said some governments, instead of supporting or investing in Internet penetration, impose high taxes on Internet access infrastructure.

It was noted that even in the countries where infrastructure is available, it is largely redundant, with little or no actual economic value derived due to digital illiteracy and lack of local content.

High speed Internet like 4G and 3G is largely used for social media platforms like WhatsApp.

Only 20 per cent of Africans have access to the Internet, according to officials.

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Governments were called on to ease Internet and telecommunication regulations to accommodate the changing dynamics brought about by the recent data disruption.
It was said that the regulation models in place work better when voice is king, which is no longer the case.

Affordability still stands as a key challenge in Internet usage in sub-Saharan Africa with costs varying from $3,037 per megabits per second (Mbit/s) in Chad to $8 in Ghana.

Although the region’s average is $366 Mbit/s the specific geographical location affects the prices. Landlocked countries pay an average of $365 per Mbit/s more than coastal countries. Most African countries get their Internet connection through expensive undersea cables.

New initiatives to provide Internet through low-orbiting satellites and high-altitude balloons offer the hope of more accessible, cheaper Internet for all, but such projects have a long way to go when it comes to cost and reach.

“Many people in Africa are still left behind especially women, because the high costs, funding and limited infrastructure are still major challenges. We have to initiate public-private initiatives as a way of dealing with these hurdles,” said Nanjira Sambuli, the digital equality advocacy manager at the World Wide Web foundation.

Yahya Abdoul Kane the Minister of Post and telecommunications in Senegal said increasing competition among private sector operators can be one way of reducing Internet costs.

The McKinsey Global Institute Report 2016 shows that digital finance has the potential to provide financial access to 1.6 billion people — more than half of whom are women — in emerging and developing economies.

The report also says that digital finance can increase the volume of loans extended to individuals and businesses by $2.1 trillion and allow governments to save $110 billion per year by reducing leakages in spending and tax revenues.

Although 4G adoption is growing in some countries like Rwanda where it stands at 70 per cent, its adoption in other sub-Saharan countries is still dismal owing to the fact that the relevant spectrum is still tied up in analogue broadcast.