Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in ... - ADEA

Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in Africa: an overview
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instituted low call charges for all Internet calls. This is a major benefit for
those living in remote areas. Thus far, 19 countries have adopted this approach,
namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Ethiopia, Gabon,
Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Senegal,
South Africa, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The Seychelles has
reduced Internet call costs to 50% of normal local calls to encourage
Internet use. These efforts notwithstanding, the cost of Internet access
is still too high for the majority of the African population. For example,
the cost for a local dialup account is approximately $60/month, which
is much higher than the average African income. This cost is compared
to $22/month in the US. This is equivalent to just less than 20% of GDP
per capita for African people, compared to the global average of 9%
and only 1% in high-income countries (Jensen, 2002).
The cost of international bandwidth is high due to international tariffs
and lack of circuit capacity, but there has been substantial growth of
international bandwidth (although from a low base), which has been
driven by growth of shared/public access and use of corporate networks.
However, the cost has made it difficult for most countries to obtain sufficient
international bandwidth, and congestion at peak times is common.
Chart 7 below shows bandwidth, bits per capita, and destination of
outgoing connections, for all of Africa.
In the area of telecommunications, there is a high rate of growth of both
fixed lines and mobile coverage (also from a low base). Research in ten
African countries by African Connection has shown that the strongest
demand in rural Africa is still for basic voice communication (African
Connection, 2002). For Africa as a whole, the number of fixed lines grew
from 12.5 million in 1995 to 21 million in 2001. However, North Africa has
11.4 million of these lines and South Africa 5 million, meaning that the
rest of the continent has only 4.6 million lines. Thus, the situation varies
greatly across regions and countries.
Some examples of teledensity (number of lines per capita) include:
• Sahel and Central Africa – 1 line per 200-500 people
• North Africa and South Africa – 1 line per 13 people
• West and East African coastal regions – ranges from 1 in 50 to 1 in
100.
Except for North Africa and South Africa, only a few smaller countries have
been able to reach a teledensity above 1 in 50. These are, Botswana,
Cape Verde, Gabon, Mauritius, Mayotte, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal,
7. ICT Infrastructure in Africa