| AFRICA
JOINS THE INTERNET AGE
Prepared by: Tim Kelly
ITU
kelly@itu.int
|
Article
drafted by Tim Kelly
for May 2000 edition of ITU News
In
March 2000, Eritrea joined the Internet. Drawing upon funds donated by
USAID’s Leland initiative, the Eritrean public telecommunication
operator, TSE, established an international gateway providing satellite
connectivity for the country’s 300 or so dial-up Internet subscribers.
The significance of this event is that it means that now, all 54 countries
and territories of Africa have direct access to the Internet (although
Liberia has temporarily lost its connection). Previously, countries like
Eritrea had been served by store and forward e-mail service only, or
through expensive international dial-up connections.
Eritrea’s
advent to the Net may not have had any noticeable effect of the market
valuations of the so-called “dot.com” companies that garner most of
the hype generated by the Internet. Nor did the extra traffic generated
from the 29 kbit/s of bandwidth which is currently available have
much impact on the many Gigabytes of traffic which is transported each
second over the worldwide Internet. Nevertheless, Eritrea’s entry means
that the Internet is a little bit less of an exclusive club. Eritrean
expatriates living outside the country have long been using the Web as a
means of exchanging information about their country. Now they can also
post links to websites of organizations within the country. Eritrea’s
own citizens also now have access to the billion or so web pages that have
been created worldwide over the last decade. |
Figure
1: The Internet in Africa
Distribution of host by region, January 1999, and number of Internet hosts in
Africa, 1994-99
Note:
* From 1998 onwards, a modified methodology was used to
allocate a proportion of hosts under generic top-level domains (e.g., com) to
countrie,s on the basis of .com registration data. Consequently, there is a
break in series between 1997 and 1998. There are around four Internet users for
each host computer.
Source:
ITU “Challenges to the Network 1999: Internet for Development”,
available at: http://www.itu.int/ti/publications/INET_99/index.htm.
Internet Software Consortium, at http://www.isc.org.
| Nevertheless, the gap between Africa and the
rest of the world with regard to Internet connectivity remains huge.
Africa’s 600’000 or so Internet users account for around 0.4 per cent
of the world’s total, whereas Africa’s 760 million inhabitants
constitute almost 13 per cent of the world’s total. Furthermore, the
rate of growth in Internet host computers in Africa, around 73 per cent
per year in the latter half of the 1990s, while still impressive, is much
slower than that achieved in Latin America or Asia-Pacific.
Even
within Africa, disparities persist. Almost 90 per cent of African Internet
users are in South Africa. South Africans enjoy by far the best
connectivity on the continent, and have the some of the lowest prices,
with typical Internet prices as low as US$ 10 per month for dial-up
access.
But
there are signs of growth in other countries. In 2000, the ITU started a
round of Internet diffusion studies, examining how the Internet has grown
in different countries around the world, and what are the obstacles that
might be hindering its continued growth. Uganda was one of the countries
chosen in the first round of studies. One of the
most liberal markets in Africa and one of the first countries in which the
number of mobile subscribers has overtaken fixed-line users (Figure 2),
Uganda is poised to become a unique laboratory for the development of
mobile Internet. Already, the primary means of corporate access to the
Internet is from microwave radio access and access from GSM data services
is already widespread. With both cellular operators poised to enter the
market, and with the newly-privatised incumbent, UTL, planning to start a
third mobile service, the likelihood is that mobile may become the primary
form of Internet access within the next five years. |
Figure
2. Internet users in Uganda
Number of subscribers to communication users and estimated Internet users,
1995-1999, and classification of Internet users, March 1999
Note:
The fixed-line voice and mobile subscribers are as
reported by the operators. The Internet users are an ITU estimate based on
number of accounts reported by ISPs.
Source:
Left chart: ITU estimates. Right chart:
Charles Musisi.
| The Internet market in Uganda is already
lively with two major Internet Service Providers (ISPs), two minor ones,
and four others licensed, but not yet providing service. In March 2000,
Africa Online, the largest ISP on the continent outside South Africa,
announced its entry into the Ugandan market by taking over the
second-largest ISP, Swift Global. This should lead to a greater degree of
price competition than exists at present. The average monthly charge for
Internet access is around US$50; even before telephone charges are taken
into account. If this figure can be reduced to close to the world average
(between US$10-20), then the Ugandan market could experience a similar
boom to that which the mobile sector is currently enjoying.
Together,
the four active ISPs had some 4’100 accounts at the start of 2000, which
probably equates to around 25’000 users (Figure 2). There are hardly any
individual users accessing the Internet from home in Uganda. Instead, the
main user groups are the business sector, the universities and
non-governmental organizations working in the country. The vast majority
of these are in Kampala. There are no points of presence in other parts of
the country, which means that users outside the capital must use expensive
dial-up connections, which greatly increases the cost of Internet access.
Indeed, in some of the more remote parts of the country, HF radio is used
for providing e-mail connectivity, albeit at very low speeds.
One
of the reasons the Internet has grown relatively rapidly in Uganda is
because the government has liberalized the VSAT data market. VSATs (Very
Small Aperture Terminals) are used by ISPs to peer with Internet Exchange
Points in other countries, as there are no peering points in the country
itself. The ability to use VSATs also means that the ISPs do not have to
rely upon the high priced international leased line services provided by
UTL, which is itself poised to enter the ISP market. In other African
countries, which have not yet liberalized access to international
connectivity, the high prices charged by incumbents are a major constraint
on market expansion.
The
lessons from Uganda are one of the experiences that will be related at the
African Telecoms and Internet Summit, being held in The Gambia,
June 5-9 2000. The meeting, which will be conducted in English and French,
is being organized jointly by the ITU and the Commonwealth
Telecommunication Organisation. It will bring together policy-makers, regulators,
Internet Service Providers and Public Telecommunication Operators from
across the continent to discuss how to expand access to the Internet in
Africa. In addition, international organizations and funding agencies will
also be participating to share information on the many different
initiatives that are currently being undertaken across the continent. The
goal is to ensure that, now all of Africa is online, a greater number of
Africans can participate in the “new economy” to which the Internet is
giving birth and can use the Internet to narrow the digital divide which
has, for too long, separated Africa from the rest of the world. Surely
that is not too ambitious a goal for the start of a new millennium?
Tim Kelly is
Co-ordinator of the Strategies and Policy Unit (SPU) within ITU. The view
expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the
ITU or its membership.
For more
information concerning the African Telecoms and Internet Summit, including
the agenda, please see the ITU website at: http://www.itu.int/africainternet2000 |
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