{"id":2108,"date":"2021-09-15T18:17:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T18:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=2108"},"modified":"2021-09-15T18:17:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T18:17:57","slug":"internet-connectivity-grows-in-africa-but-only-reaches-20-percent-of-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=2108","title":{"rendered":"Internet Connectivity Grows In Africa, But Only Reaches 20 Percent Of Population"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya \u2014\u00a0When the undersea fiber optic cables landed on Kenya\u2019s coastal town of Mombasa in\u00a0June 2009<\/a>\u00a0from the United Arab Emirates, John Thuo, 35, never imagined it meant doom to his cybercaf\u00e9 business.<\/p>\n

Thuo, a computer science graduate from the\u00a0Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology,<\/a>\u00a0operated an internet caf\u00e9 at an apartment on Jogoo Road on the outskirts of Nairobi.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn a day, I would serve more than 500 people,\u201d he told Zenger News.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSometimes, I would turn customers away due to lack of space. But suddenly, the number of customers visiting my internet caf\u00e9 dwindled gradually. Before long, no one was visiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The fiber optic cable resulted in higher speeds for Kenya\u2019s internet service providers, including Safaricom<\/a>,\u00a0Jamii Telecom<\/a>,\u00a0Airtel Kenya<\/a>, and\u00a0Wananchi Group<\/a>, at the expense of small businesses like Thuo\u2019s.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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He became an agent for Jamii Telecom in 2014 to lure his clients with different internet packages such as 8GB for $2.77 and 25GB for $9.25, which could last for some days or weeks.<\/p>\n

However, this did not bring back customers, attracted to cheaper rates from competitors.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy clients opted for Zuku fiber [owned by Wananchi Group], which had the lowest package of $13.86 for a month at the time. When Kenya launched the fiber optic, people started accessing the internet on their mobile phones. Others installed unlimited internet in their homes. Left with little choice, I converted my cybercaf\u00e9 into a computer repair shop.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Thuo\u2019s sentiments come in the wake of a report by the\u00a0United Nations Economic Commission for Africa<\/a>, which said that Africa\u2019s locally routed online traffic has increased, even though less than one in five households have internet.<\/p>\n

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In addition, International Finance Corporation<\/a>\u00a0says the number of people with internet access has grown to 522.8 million, or 39.8 percent of the population since 2000.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Between 2010 and 2019, more than 300 million Africans gained access to the internet, with nearly 500 million new smartphone connections, said the organization.<\/p>\n

In the next decade, the number of internet users in Africa is expected to grow by 11 percent, representing 16 percent of the total global amount, said the International Finance Corporation.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Internet Society<\/a>, a non-profit organization, also said in a recent report that Africa needs to increase internet access to boost its economy, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

It also said Africa\u2019s\u00a0Internet Exchange Points<\/a>\u00a0had increased by 58 percent over the past eight years, from 19 in 2012 to 46 in 2020. Six countries have\u00a0more than one.<\/a><\/p>\n

Internet Exchange Points is a technical infrastructure where multiple networks, including mobile operators, research and education networks, enterprise networks, and e-government services, connect and exchange internet traffic.<\/p>\n

They enable the local exchange of internet traffic instead of expensive international transit routes, making internet access much more affordable and improving access quality by providing more direct network connections.<\/p>\n

The most developed Internet ecosystem in Africa is South Africa, which has reached 80 percent of localized traffic, followed by Kenya and Nigeria at 70 percent each.<\/p>\n

Additionally, South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria have more than\u00a050 networks<\/a>\u00a0connected to local internet exchange points with diverse local, regional, and international networks.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0said that internet providers could save up to $240,000 yearly by connecting to a local internet exchange point.<\/p>\n

Further, content delivery networks have increased significantly, and the amount of locally available content and demand for content hosting has grown, too.<\/p>\n

The new report expands on a 2020 analysis of internet exchange point growth in Kenya and Nigeria by the\u00a0International Finance Corporation<\/a>, which said internet use could contribute up to $180 billion to Africa\u2019s Gross Domestic Product by 2025.<\/p>\n

Although internet usage has expanded across the continent, certain African governments restrict digital communication by shutting down internet access during protests over economic hardships, elections, or political upheavals.<\/p>\n

The Ugandan government in 2018 introduced a\u00a0social media tax<\/a>\u00a0to curb online critics of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.<\/p>\n

In Kenya, the number of internet and data subscribers stood at 43.7 million at the end of March 31, 2021, from 44.4 million at the end of Dec.31, 2020, according to\u00a0Communications Authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report attributed the 1.5 percent decline in the subscription to the increase in inactive mobile data or internet subscriptions following the resumption of physical learning in schools from September 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the implementation of\u00a0National Information, Communications, and Technology Policy 2019<\/a>, the government has created the infrastructure environment to enable the use of always-on high-speed wireless internet across the country,\u201d Jerome Ochieng, the principal secretary of\u00a0Ministry of Information Communication and Technology<\/a>, told Zenger News.<\/p>\n

Kenya boasts of high-speed internet, with most companies providing limited 3G internet services, while some upgrading to 4G, according to a\u00a0GeoPoll survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In South Africa, there are over 38.19 million internet users as of January 2021, according to\u00a0datareportal.com<\/a>, which also said the number of internet users in the country increased by 1.7 million between 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n

Michele McCann,\u00a0Teraco<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0NAPAfrica<\/a>\u00a0head of interconnection and peering, said the Southern African internet has improved user experience and reach over the last ten years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSubstantial investments have been made into subsea cables, last-mile connectivity, and a greater local availability of content and cloud services,\u201d she told Zenger News.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese factors have been significant contributors to higher levels of internet adoption on the back of more affordable access and improved user experience in the Southern African region.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, NAP Africa has connected over 500 networks, including content and cloud providers.<\/p>\n

The Internet Society urged African governments to expand internet infrastructure to rural areas, where most people live.<\/p>\n

Source: Zenger News<\/a>
\nPhoto by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya \u2014\u00a0When the undersea fiber optic cables landed on Kenya\u2019s coastal town of Mombasa in\u00a0June 2009\u00a0from the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,32,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-express","category-business","category-zenger-zone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2110,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions\/2110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}