WWW/Internet - Portal do Software Público Brasileiro

ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADIScommerce while 8% were not sure. The common reasons given for not using e-commerce on the Internetwere security reasons, lack of credit cards and poor financial resources.The general experience of those who have purchased goods online shows that they were satisfied with thepractice. Nearly 20% of the respondents reported the practice to be good, 33% reported that they were notinterested, 40% reported satisfaction, while 7% were not sure whether they would use it again. The mostpopular search engine among Internet users in Kenya is Google (62%), followed by Yahoo (27%) and othersearch engines (6%).Generally, the respondents expressed the desire to use the Internet service more. However, the cost andconvenience of access has limited Internet use. Consequently, access times are short. Another factor is theslow access speed. This is due to the poor quality of telecommunication links, partially attributed tocongestion. This frustrates many potential users and discourages Internet surfing. According to thequestionnaire survey, 52% of the respondents regarded slow page download time as their biggest problem,37% reported cost to be their biggest problem, 5% failure to find the information on the web and 6% constanterror pages.5. DISCUSSION5.1 Internet Access Technologies Available in KenyaIn Kenya, Internet access is provided through dial-up or leased lines. Recently, broadband has beenintroduced in the form of ADSL, fixed wireless, fibre access and cable modem. The government is currentlysupporting several projects aimed at boosting the country’s broadband infrastructure with the most highprofileprojects being the fiber optic international submarine cable to the country’s shores, East AfricaMarine Systems (EAMS) and the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSYs). These initiatives willconnect the countries of Eastern Africa via a high bandwidth fiber optic cable system with the rest of theworld. TEAMS, a multi-million dollar fibre optic cable link from Mombasa (Kenya) to Fujaira in the UnitedArab Emirates, is expected to link East Africa to the rest of the world (Kenya Business, 2008).5.2 Profile of a Typical Kenyan Internet UserA user of the Internet in Kenya is typically a single male aged between 16 and 25 years of age with auniversity/college degree and earning a monthly salary of less than Kshs 5000 1 . Although he owns a PC athome, he is accessing the Internet from his workplace and using it on a daily basis. The most common uses ofthe Internet include e-mail and searching for information on education, sport, news and entertainment. Thepreferred search engines are Google and Yahoo among others. He is not yet ready for e-commerce andInternet banking.5.3 Internet Usage Pattern among Kenyan UsersThis study is the first report on Internet usage patterns of the Internet population in Kenya. Although Internetusage in Kenya is low and lags behind other telecommunication services, for example mobile phones(Communications Commission of Kenya, 2008b), it still remains beyond the capability of many Kenyanhouseholds. Quite a number of people have expressed a desire to use the Internet more, mainly because of itseconomical, political, social and cultural development and possibilities.From this research it appears that a considerable number of the Kenyan population gets access to theInternet from their workplaces rather than any other source. The arrival of the fibre optic internationalsubmarine cable to the country will lower the rates of international bandwidth which will finally increase thenumber of Internet connections (Electronics Newsweekly, 2009).The results of this study clearly indicate that the exploitation of the Internet for commercial transactions isstill in its infancy. This is due to the absence of enabling legislation (Information and Communication1 US$1 is about Kshs 7762