As the Internet spreads like wildfire across the African continent, Mike Jensen assesses our relative connectivity levels
The Internet has spread rapidly through Africa over the last 18 months. In May 1996 only 16 countries had full Internet access. Now more than three- quarters of the capital cities in Africa are online – 44 of the 56 countries and territories on the continent are wired. With continued momentum, most of the remaining capitals should soon be on the Net.
The maturity of the Internet service market is usually reflected by the number of Internet service providers (ISPs) competing with each other. Most African capitals with Internet access have more than one ISP.
The top 12 countries with the largest Internet markets are C”te d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and of course South Africa, which is among the top 20 countries in the world when ranked by its number of Internet nodes.
Hot on the heels of the leading 12 countries are Benin, Cameroun, Madagascar and Nigeria. Countries with only one ISP after 12 months are: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Niger and Seychelles.
In some cases this is because the ISP is a regulated monopoly, such as in Ethiopia and Mauritius.
Access in the capital doesn’t do much for the majority of Africans, more than three-quarters of whom live in rural areas.
Only 1,4% of the continent’s 700-million population uses the Internet. About 700 000 of Africa’s estimated one million users live in South Africa.
Although there is plenty of demand for Internet access in the capitals and larger towns, the very limited computerisation and telephone infrastructure, and higher telecom costs outside these areas, mean there may be insufficient demand in rural areas to support the costs of setting local access points.
But countering this is the growing interest in kiosks, cyber- cafs – like South Africa’s tele-centres – and other forms of public access. Adding PCs to community phone-shops, schools, police stations and clinics would mean the cost of equipment access could be shared among a larger number of users.
Reflecting high telecommunication costs and small markets, often supplied by a single operator, charges for dial-up Internet access are generally higher in Africa than elsewhere. Currently, the average cost of a low volume Internet account in Africa is about R325 per month, using the lowest-priced services available in each country (in some cases just e-mail). When the cost of the local telephone call is added to this, the total cost of access is probably more than R500 per month on average.
In some countries these high charges mean even if a computer and phone are available, the service is beyond the reach of all but the wealthy.
However, as a result of the rapidity with which new ISPs are entering most markets, the price of access is expected to drop considerably wherever it is above R500 per month.
E-mail access represents a quantum jump from the fax system in terms of functionality, slashed costs for international communications and access to the world’s rapidly growing online environment. An increasing number of mail-based offline applications are being developed and it is already possible to update a website or make a purchase by e-mail.
Another notable development has come from the alacrity with which the national telecom operators (PTOs) have started Internet services. A total of 27 have already brought full Internet services on stream and another five or six plan do so shortly.
This could have a positive impact on the cost and accessibility of the Internet, given the much larger economies of scale the PTOs can apply to the provision of telecommunication based services.
Very few African PTOs have officially defined themselves as the “only” supplier (when private companies are barred from reselling Internet services, as in Ethiopia). In some countries existing regulations restricting resale have not been obeyed to the letter by private ISPs, but the PTOs have usually turned a blind eye. In other countries that have been more extensively liberalised the PTOs have no direct role in the growing ISP market. However, with the exceptions of Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia, in all the countries where the PTO has established the international Internet backbone it has assumed a monopoly position.
Access to sufficient international bandwidth for carrying out interactive activities over the Internet is still a major problem in most African countries. Although until recently few countries except South Africa had international circuits larger than 64 kilobytes per second, 128 kilobytes per second connections are becoming increasingly common. Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Tunisia all boast connections of 256 kilobytes per second or more.
Most international Internet connections are carried via satellite. South Africa is an exception, using its marine optical fibre link to the mid-Atlantic hub in the Canaries Islands.
Leased lines from South Africa to its neighbouring countries cost much less than other international circuits due to the use of direct microwave links (rather than Intelsat). This has resulted in most ISPs in neighbouring countries connecting to the South African Internet infrastructure. Apart from this South African hub for neighbouring countries, regional backbones or links between other neighbouring countries are currently non-existent.
The majority of international Internet circuits in Africa connect to the United States.
On the content side, the African webspace is expanding rapidly. Almost all the countries on the continent have some form of local or internationally hosted Web server unofficially or officially representing them with varying degrees of comprehensiveness.
One success story lies in the substantial increase in the amount of Web-based information on Francophone African countries that emerged out of the efforts of the association of Francophone countries supported by France and Quebec (La Francophonie).
Universities in most African countries have e-mail connectivity at a minimum, and about 13 countries have universities with full Internet connectivity. However Internet facilities at most of the universities are restricted to staff. Postgraduates are often able to obtain access but the general student population is usually without access.
Mike Jensen is an independent consultant with experience in the
establishment of computer communications systems in more than 30 African countries. He is currently working with the Universal Service Agency to help establish rural multi-purpose telecentres. He has worked as a journalist on the former Rand Daily Mail and Business Day in Johannesburg.