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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action
from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived
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Africa: Internet Status
Africa: Internet Status
Date distributed (ymd): 001029
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains excerpts from a September 2000 report by Mike
Jensen on the status of the internet in Africa. Extensive
additional details are available on the site on the topic
maintained by Jensen: http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/ The full
version of this report is at
http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm
Of related interest:
APIC Africa on the Internet Page
http://www.africapolicy.org/inet.htm
Has links to country-specific data and news.
Economic Commission for Africa National Information and
Communications Infrastructure
http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/nici
Includes country-specific data on web sites and on information
infrastructure
Virtual exhibitions on Africaserver
http://www.africaserver.nl/virtual/index_uk.html
Innovative multilingual collaboration on art exhibits from
Mozambique, Burkina Faso and other countries. Includes the
striking Arms into Art sculpture exhibit from Nucleo de Arte in
Maputo.
Results of Elections for at-large representatives to Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
http://www.apc.org/english/rights/governance/
Elected candidates include Nii Quaynor of Ghana for Africa, one of
the civil society candidates recommended by the Association for
Progressive Communications.
Recent Application for .africa top-level internet domain
http://www.icann.org/tlds/africa1/
Rathbawn Computers Limited, incorporated in Ireland and with
contact addresses in Colorado and Australia, has applied for new
top-level domains .africa and .afr for the African continent.
Applications for new top-level domains (like the current .com, .org
and two-letter country domains) are now being received by ICANN.
While the company's application argues that it will provide
low-cost services for Africa, there is no indication that it has
any previous connection with the continent. Rathbawn is also
applying for the .sex top-level domain.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
African Internet Status
Sept 2000
Mike Jensen - mikej@sn.apc.org
The Internet has grown rapidly on the continent over the last few
years. At the end of 1996 only 11 countries had Internet access,
but by September this year all 54 countries and territories had
achieved permanent connectivity. Liberia, however, currently has no
local Internet services (Liberia was connected last year, but lost
its link when the ISP failed to achieve commercial viability).
Despite the rapid growth of Internet access in Africa it has been
largely confined to the capital cities, although a growing number
of countries do have points of presence (POPs) in some of the
secondary towns (currently 16 countries - Algeria, Angola,
Botswana, DRC, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco,
Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia and
Zimbabwe), and South Africa has POPs in about 100 cities and towns.
However, in some countries the national telecom operators have made
a special policy to provide local call Internet access across the
whole country. ... so far only 15 of the 53 countries have adopted
this strategy - Benin, Burkina Faso, Cap Vert, Ethiopia, Gabon,
Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Tchad, Togo,
Tunisia, and Zimbabwe.
The total number of computers permanently connected to the Internet
in Africa (excluding South Africa) finally broke the 10 000 mark at
the beginning of 1999 and in Jan 2000 it stood at almost 12 000, an
increase of 20% as measured by Network Wizards. The figure may
actually be closer to 25 000 to 30 000 due to the measurement
technique which cannot count hosts which are not referenced in
domain name servers and those that are registered under the generic
TLDs - .com, .net, .org. Nevertheless this still means Africa has
about as many hosts on the Internet as a small Eastern European
country such as Latvia, which only has a population of 2.5 million
(compared to the 780m people in Africa's as estimated by Unicef
1998, about 13% of the total world population).
The recent opening up of the Nigerian Internet market is beginning
to change this picture as the telecom regulator has licensed 38
ISPs to sell services and about 12 are currently active. With a
fifth of Sub Sahara's population, Nigeria has been one of the
slumbering giants of the African Internet world which until mid '98
only had a few dialup email providers and a couple of full ISPs
operating on very low bandwidth links - few were able to afford the
$130 000 a year for an international 9.6Kbps leased line. Nitel has
now established a POP in Lagos with a 2MB link to Global One in the
US and has put POPs in 4 other cities..
It is difficult to measure actual numbers of Internet users, but
figures for the number of dialup subscriber accounts to ISPs are
more readily available, for which it is estimated that there are
now over 1 000 000 subscribers in Africa. Of these, North Africa is
responsible for about 200 000 and South Africa for 650 000, leaving
about 150 000 for the remaining 50 African countries. But each
computer with an Internet or email connection supports an average
of three users, a recent study by the UN Economic Commission for
Africa (ECA) has found. This puts current estimates of the number
of African Internet users at somewhere around 3 million in total,
with about 1 million outside of South Africa. This works out at
about one Internet user for every 250 people, compared to a world
average of about one user for every 35 people, and a North American
and European average of about one in every 3 people. ...
There are now about 28 countries with 1000 or more dialup
subscribers, but only about 11 countries with 5000 or more - Cote
d'Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, South
Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Clearly a number of countries
such as those in North Africa and Southern Africa have more highly
developed economies and better infrastructures which would
naturally result in larger populations of Internet users. ...
Currently, the average total cost of using a local dialup Internet
account for 5 hours a month in Africa is about $50/month (usage
fees, telephone time included, but not telephone line rental).
Nevertheless ISP charges vary greatly - between $10 and $100 a
month, largely reflecting the different levels of maturity of the
markets, the varying tariff policies of the telecom operators, and
the different national policies on private wireless data services
and on access to international telecommunications bandwidth.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, in '97, 20 hours of Internet access in the U.S. cost
$29, including telephone charges. Although European costs were
higher ($74 in Germany, $52 in France, $65 in Britain, and $53 in
Italy) these figures are for 4 times the amount of access, and all
of these countries have per capita incomes which are at least 10
times greater than the African average.
Most African capitals now have more than one ISP and in early 2000
there were about 450 public ISPs across the region (excluding SA,
where the market has consolidated into 2 major players with 90% of
the market and 40-50 small players with the remainder). Seven
countries had 10 or more ISPs - Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria,
South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe - while 20 countries had only
one ISP. Although Ethiopia and Mauritius are the only countries
where a monopoly ISP is national policy (i.e. where private
companies are barred from reselling Internet services), there are
other countries in which this practice still continues,
predominantly in the Sahel sub-region where markets are small.
In response to the high cost of full Internet based services and
the slow speed of the web, and also because of the overriding
importance of electronic mail, lower-cost email-only services have
been launched by many ISPs and are continuing to attract
subscribers. Similarly, because of the relatively high cost of
local electronic mailbox services from African ISPs, a large
proportion of African email users make use of the free Web-based
services such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Excite, most of which are in the
US. These services can be more costly and cumbersome than using
standard email software, because extra online time is needed to
maintain the connection to the remote site. But they do provide the
added advantages of anonymity and perhaps greater perceived
stability than a local ISP who may not be in business next year.
There is also a rapidly growing interest in kiosks, cybercafes and
other forms of public Internet access, such as adding PCs to
community phone-shops, schools, police stations and clinics which
can share the cost of equipment and access amongst a larger number
of users. Many existing 'phone shops' are now adding Internet
access to their services, even in remote towns where it is a
long-distance call to the nearest dialup access point. In addition
a growing number of hotels and business centres provide a PC with
Internet access.
The rapidity with which most African public telecom operators have
moved into the Internet services market is also noteworthy. In the
last three years PTOs have brought Internet services on stream in
31 countries and similar moves are afoot in three others (Liberia,
Somalia and Tanzania). ...
In all the countries where the PTO has established the
international Internet backbone, it is the sole International link
provider except in Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa
and Zambia where they compete with private sector international
links. Usually the PTOs operate the international gateway and
access to the national backbone, and leave the resale of end-user
Internet access to the private sector. In a few countries the PTO
also competes with the private sector in the provision of end-user
dialup accounts, namely, Cameroun, South Africa and Zambia.
As far as the multinational ISPs are concerned, AfricaOnline
(http://www.africaonline.com), is the largest operation. The group
is consolidating its year of growth which saw local branches open
in Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, adding to its
stable in Ghana, Kenya, and Cote d'Ivoire. AfricaOnline has plans
to open up in additional countries over the coming months. ...
Due to high international tariffs and lack of circuit capacity,
obtaining sufficient international bandwidth for delivering web
pages over the Internet is still a major problem in most countries.
Until recently few of the countries outside of South Africa had
international Internet links larger than 64Kbps, but today 24
countries have 512Kps or more, and 15 countries have outgoing links
of 1Mbps or more - Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Libya,
Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria,
Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Tunisia. Excluding South
Africa, the total international outgoing Internet bandwidth
installed in Africa is about 60Mbps. However this means that on
average about 6 dialup users must share each 1Kbps of international
bandwidth, making for slow connections to remote sites.
As a result, a growing number of African Internet sites are hosted
on servers that are in Europe or the U.S. This is especially
necessary for countries where ISPs operate their own independent
international links without local interconnections (peering), such
as in Kenya and Tanzania, which means that traffic between the
subscribers of two ISPs in the same city must travel to the US or
Europe and back. This makes it more efficient to host
outside-country, and is also being encouraged because web hosting
costs can be very high, while there are even a number of free
hosting sites in the US and Europe. ...
With the exception of some ISPs in Southern Africa, almost all of
the international Internet circuits in Africa connect to the USA,
with a few to the United Kingdom, Italy and France. However,
Internet Service Providers in countries with borders shared with
South Africa benefit from the low tariff policies instituted by the
South African telecom operator for international links to
neighbouring countries. As a result South Africa acts as a hub for
some of its neighbouring countries - Lesotho, Namibia, and
Swaziland.
The major international Internet suppliers are AT&T, BT, Global
One/Sprint, UUNET/AlterNet, MCI, NSN, BBN, Teleglobe, Verio and
France Telecom/FCR. A number of other links are provided by
PanamSat and Intelsat direct to private and PTO groundstations in
the US and UK, circumventing local PTO infrastructure.
Aside from the South Africa/Lesotho/Swaziland network and a link
between Mauritius and Madagascar, there are no other regional
backbones or links between neighbouring countries. The main reason
for this is that the high international tariffs charged by telecom
operators discourages Internet Service Providers from establishing
multiple international links. As a result ISPs are forced to
consolidate all of their traffic over a single high cost
international circuit.
Roaming dialup Internet access is now a reality for travellers to
most African countries courtesy of SITA, the airline co-operative,
which has by far the largest network in Africa. SITA's commercial
division, SCITOR (recently renamed Equant), which was formed to
service the non-airline market, now operates dialup points of
presence in 40 African countries. Subscribers to Internet service
providers who are members of IPASS (a group of ISPs, including
SITA, who share their POPs) can access their home ISPs for about
$0.22c a minute. See http://www.ipass.com. ...
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has now taken
over administration of Internet IP Address space for Africa (along
with North America, South America, and the Caribbean). This means
that address space is no longer free and until a local African
Registry can be set up, networks will now be required to pay ARIN
USD$2500 per year to obtain a Class-C address. A proposal for an
Africa Network Information Centre (NIC) has been discussed for some
years only now is progress being made, partly because of the lack
of on-the-ground national networking associations to support it and
the political difficulties of identifying the appropriate host
country and organisation to operate it. ...
Evidence gathered by ECA suggests the average level of Internet use
in Africa is about one incoming and one outgoing email per day,
averaging 3 to 4 pages, in communications which are most often with
people outside the continent. Surveys indicated that about 25
percent of the email is replacing faxes, while 10 percent are
replacing phone calls and the other 65 percent are communications
that would not have been made in the absence of an email system.
The highest number of users surveyed belonged to non-government
organizations (NGOs), private companies and universities. The ratio
of nationals to non-nationals varied between countries: 44 percent
of users surveyed in Zambia were nationals as compared to 90
percent in Ghana. Most users were male: 86 percent in Ethiopia, 83
percent in Senegal, and 64 percent in Zambia. The large majority of
users were well educated: 87 percent of users in Zambia and 98
percent in Ethiopia had a university degree. ...
Email is used for general correspondence and document exchange,
technical advice, managing projects, arranging meetings, and
exchanging research ideas, although its use is still limited for
accessing formal information resources. Across the continent, users
report that email has increased efficiency and reduced the cost of
communication but as yet it is used almost exclusively for
contacting individuals in other regions. The Web is still a
relatively under-utilised resource, although 40 percent of Zambian
users questioned had conducted literature searches on the web.
Universities were initially at the vanguard of Internet
developments in Africa and most of them provide email services,
however in early 1999 only about 20 countries had universities with
full Internet connectivity. Because of the limited resources and
high costs of providing computer facilities and bandwidth, full
Internet access at the universities where it exists is usually
restricted to staff. Post graduates are often able to obtain access
but the general student population usually has no access.
In the area of Internet content development, the African web-space
is expanding rapidly and almost all countries have some form of
local or internationally hosted web server, unofficially or
officially representing the country with varying degrees of
comprehensiveness. However, there are still generally few
institutions that are using the Web to deliver significant
quantities of information. While increasing numbers of
organisations have a Web site with basic descriptive and contact
information, many are hosted by international development agency
sites, and very few actually use the Web for their activities. This
is partly explained by the limited number of local people that have
access to the Internet (and thus the limited importance of a web
presence to the institution), the limited skills available for
digitising and coding pages, and also by the high costs of local
web hosting services.
It can be observed that the French speaking countries have a far
higher profile on the Web and greater institutional connectivity
than the non-French speaking countries. This is largely due to the
strong assistance provided by the various Francophone support
agencies, and the Canadian and French governments, which are
concerned about the dominance of English on the Internet. ...
Although there are a few notable official general government web
sites, such as those of Angola, Egypt, Gabon, Mauritius, Morocco,
Mozambique, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia and Zambia, there is as yet no
discernible government use of the Internet for existing
administrative purposes. ...
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC provides accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.
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