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Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in Africa: an overview 71 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
72 Working Group on Distance Education and Open Learning Chart 7: African bandwidth, bits per capita and destination of outgoing connections Source: www.idrc.ca/acacia/divide 7. ICT Infrastructure in Africa The size of the Internet in a country indicates an element of its progress towards an information-based economy. International Internet bandwidth provides a measure of Internet activity because many people share accounts, or use corporate and academic networks along with cyber cafes and business centers. Outgoing bandwidth also takes better account of the wide range of possible use, from those who write a few emails each week, to users who spend many hours a day on the net browsing, transacting, streaming, and downloading. Because of this, the often used ‘Number of Internet Users’ indicator may have less relevance in the developing world than in other places. The coloured circle in each country on the map shows, to exact scale, the international bandwidth in bits per capita (BPC) available in Mid 2002 from publicly accessible IP networks.
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