Current situation

With smartphone use and web penetration soaring, Africa is on its way to a tech revolution. 1 billion people living in Africa now have access to the Internet, and connectivity is on the rise. Internet penetration in Africa soared from very low levels in 2009 to 16% of individuals in 2013 and over 20% in 2015.

Kenya is reported to be the first African country measured by the Internet connection speed (10 Mbps).³ Seven out of 10 Kenyans have access to the World Wide Web. Therefore, Kenya gets the first place in penetration rate. According to the report, Kenya showed a strong quarterly gain of 43 percent, which is the highest in the region. In comparison, Kenya is followed by South Africa with an average connection speed of 6.0 Mbps, then goes Morocco with 4.7 Mbps, followed by Nigeria at 3.0 Mbps, Egypt (2.7 Mbps) and Namibia with 2.5 Mbps.

However, it is an obvious fact that Africa is way behind the “digital divide”. Only 25/1 % of people in Africa use the Internet. There are numerous obstacles to the progress.

The lack of electricity is the most critical issue holding back Africa’s development. Some regions still operate on generators for 18 out of 24 hours. The fact is that the main problem is not producing this electricity, but distributing it across the region.

Another bump is the lack of internet material in their local language. Due to the fact that the 2.500 languages and dialects spoken across the continent there are millions who do not have the basic practical education to make the most of the internet revolution.⁴

What is more, government itself presents difficulty to the progress. The process of legislations connected with the development and use of ICT (Information and communication technology) is very slow. Africa faces threats presented by internet security and privacy issues.

Finally, low income plays another negative role in the progress of Internet connection. As a matter of fact, the cost of Internet connection is unaffordable by most of the nation.

Until 2009, the only way of connection with sub-Saharan Africa was through satellite connections, which are very expensive and low in capacity. The new submarine connections led to a remarkable increase in data transmission capacity and drastically reduced the transmission time and cost. Half a dozen deep-sea cables were draped along the continent’s eastern and western seaboards at the turn of the decade. There are now 16 undersea cables connecting Africa to the Americas, Europe and Asia.⁵ All but two countries—Eritrea and Western Sahara—with a coastline have a cable landing on their shores. And that is not the finish line. According to the latest reports, 25.00- km submarine cable connecting nearly 20 hubs across Asia, Africa and Europe is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The connection of Africa to the world is progressing, and so is the connection between African countries. There is, however, one final goal to meet, perhaps the most difficult: the interior connection within a country. Additionally, Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to benefit from a partnership with several international organizations. The main aim is to provide internet access even into hard-to-reach rural communities. The world’s major technology companies – including Microsoft, Google and Facebook – are deeply interested in last-mile connectivity across the continent, with its billion-plus population.

By 2020 there will be more than 700m smartphone connections in Africa.⁶ In Nigeria alone 16 smartphones are sold every minute, while mobile data traffic across Africa is set to increase 15-fold by 2020. Internet penetration is rising faster than anywhere else as costs of data and devices fall.

There is a real Pan-African movement of technological incubators that is encouraging community building and empowering young developers to create innovative products and companies. There are now about 100 technological laboratories in 28 countries across Africa. In order to bring technology to remote areas, several projects are being undertaken in different parts of the continent. One of them is Citizen Connect,⁷ created by the MyDigitalBridge Foundation, with support from Microsoft and the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia. Citizen Connect seeks to provide the infrastructure needed to offer connectivity and services to citizens, regardless of their location and income or the existent infrastructure.

Access to the internet is a key enabler of economic growth and social change. According to Benson Maina, the man who runs the Kenyan internet cafe mentioned above, “Bringing the internet connection to the community… People never knew the possibilities, but now they have the whole world in their hands.”⁸