Internet in Africa

Telecommunication companies in Africa are looking at Broadband Wireless Access technologies as the key to make Internet available to the population at large.

This high rate is mainly because Kenya is home to M-Pesa, which is a mobile wallet provider and the offered secure payment system encourages internet access.

As of October 2020, the majority of web traffic in leading digital markets in Africa originated from mobile devices in Nigeria, one of the countries with the biggest number of internet users worldwide.

[14] As a consequence of this general lack of connectivity, most Africa-generated network traffic (something between 70%[15] and 85%[14]) is routed through servers that are located elsewhere (mainly Europe).

[14] As a consequence of the scarce overall bandwidth provided by cable connections, a large section of Internet traffic in Africa goes through expensive satellite links.

On African IXPs, traffic can be measured in kbit/s (kilobits per second) or Mbit/s (megabits per second), while in the rest of the world it is typically in the order of magnitude of Gbit/s (gigabits per second).

For example, the main academic network in South Africa, TENET, has 10 Gbit/s private peering with ISP Internet Solutions both in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

[14] The regulation of network businesses and the establishment of authorities to control them is widely recognised as a relevant objective by most African governments.

A model for such regulation is provided by Morocco; after an authority was established in 1998, and Meditel entered the market in 1999 to compete with the main incumbent Maroc Telecom, the situation has been quickly developing.

Specifically, some of the major issues of the continent might be tackled by applications of this technology, as demonstrated by some initiatives that have already been started and that proved successful.

[21] It has also been suggested that e-Government applications could indirectly alleviate widespread political issues such as they would definitely help bridge the gap between the institutions and remote rural areas.

[14] African economy might also benefit from broadband availability, for example as a consequence of the applicability of e-commerce and outsourcing business models that have long proved effective in Europe and North America.

[19] A number of projects have been started that aim at bringing more bandwidth to Africa, in order to cut down costs for both operators and end users.

The Kenyan government has started a similar project named TEAMS (The East Africa Marine System), with the collaboration of Etisalat.

The European Investment Bank makes funding emerging developments on the continent a priority, in line with the EU's plan for African digital transformation.

The recent linking of East Africa to the global fibre-optic network generated similar visions and hopes to those that emerged in the Victorian era when railways were used to connect the previously disconnected.

In order for the network to reach a larger part of the population, solutions are needed for the last mile problem, i.e., to make bandwidth available to the final user.

To be feasible for Africa, last mile solutions must be found that take into account the limited penetration of fixed telephony lines, especially in rural areas.

Note that providing network access to rural communities is one of Millennium Goals defined by the World Summit on the Information Society.

In Kenya, the Digital Village Scheme project aims at providing government services in rural areas via wireless access.

The South African authority ICASA has already assigned WiMAX licences to several providers, and Neotel is implementing WiMAX-based last mile solutions in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.

By rapidly linking entrepreneurs, startups, and enterprises with existing and future clientele, digital platforms are creating possibilities for them.

The top three most often requested services are domestic money transfers (87%), receiving payments from clients (85%), and paying bills or suppliers (79.6%).

[43][44][45] In the 2020s, in an effort to bridge the digital divide, several African countries granted licenses to companies such as SpaceX’s Starlink who offer satellite internet.