A t
least 45 of the 54 capital cities in Africa now offer their
residents live public Internet access services and of these
eight countries have local dial-up access throughout their
more rural regions. The rapid adaptation of the Internet
as a business tool over the past three years is the main
reason for the surge in connections but over-regulation
and poor telecommunication infrastructure continue to pose
serious obstacles to true cyber-connectivity. None of the
42 Internet connected countries provided access at anywhere
near the world norm of one in 45 people with direct Internet
access.
South Africa is still rated the best in Africa, with one
in 65 people having direct access to the Internet but elsewhere
in Africa, the average is nearer one in 4,000 people. Zimbabwe
ranks third in Africa with one in 1,000 people boasting direct
access, while a full 700,000 of the estimated one million
people in Africa with public access to the Internet are
believed to reside in South Africa. E-mail access, although
often too expensive, too slow, and hampered by phone lines
inadequate in both number and quality, is spreading rapidly
in Africa. There are only a few countries now where there
is no known connectivity. Web access is more limited, but
is also spreading rapidly.
Within the continent, South Africa
is comparable to most European countries in the level of
connectivity. In general, Southern Africa is the most advanced
region, but countries all over the continent are getting
connected. Even the Central African Republic’s telecommunications
company went on-line with a full Web connection way back in April
1996. At present the cost of connection is still relatively
high, and availability limited. But e-mail communication
is already far cheaper than fax and phone. Currently, with
the exception of South Africa, the majority of information
and messages about African countries and issues on the Internet
still comes from host computers in Western countries. Business
information concerning Africa available on-line at present
comes primarily from international governmental and non-governmental
organisations, a few national governments as well as privately
hosted websites like The Africa Business Pages which is
hosted by Dubai-based Gateway Marketing.
Increasingly, information on the Internet provided in
one form is often available in another form as well, just
as you can get most printed magazines at a newsstand,
at a library, or by subscription. Tools for accessing
the Web by e-mail are also available, although the process
is less directly interactive and requires more patience
and planning. Despite rapid recent progress, Africa continues
to lag far behind the developed world where, for example,
one in six people in North America and Europe are estimated
to use the Internet regularly. Internet and electronic
mail (e-mail) are essential in assisting African businesses
to overcome their traditional constraints to economic
development, such as distance from markets. High Internet
access charges are also a serious problem. Other problems
include a severe shortage of skilled technology personnel,
the high cost of computer and communication equipment,
inadequate telecommunications infrastructure and unreasonable
regulatory environments in many countries.
One of the most serious problems in Africa is teledensity
- or the number of telephone lines per 100 people. There
are in fact more telephone lines in just New York or Tokyo
than in the whole of Africa. This disastrous state of
telecommunications is directly related to the State control
and monopoly model adopted by African counties and the
fact that governments have concentrated their telecommunication
drives on urban areas while 89% of Africa's population
live in rural areas. The only solution to the problems
is for governments to embrace privatisation. This does
not necessarily mean handing entire the telecommunication
industries over to multi-national companies - South Africa
has proved that local investors are more than willing
to invest in potentially lucrative markets either directly
or through the stock exchange.
