Contents

1. Introduction

2. Access Issues

3. Benefits?

4. Issues

5. Discussion & Conclusion

6. References

The barrier to benefits from the Internet in developing countries is the lack of access. In Africa, the greatest impediments are the limited telecommunications infrastructure, the cost of Internet calls and the lack of IT expertise.

Telecommunications Infrastructure

The lack of telecommunications infrastructure is demonstrated by the abundant statistical information available on every aspect of this, both in the print media and on the World Wide Web (WWW). Joyce-Hasham (2000), for example, reports that less than 5% of the world's population is on-line (p. 12). (1999) asserts that more than 80% of the world's population has never heard a dial tone and that fewer than 2% are connected to the Internet. Wrench (1998) notes that Africa has 12% of the world's population, but just 2% of its telephone lines (p. 295). With the shortcomings of and overwhelming interest in improving the disparity in the telecommunications infrastructure in Africa, why has the infrastructure not expanded? According to the (1999b), two of the major reasons for the slowness in infrastructure development are the poverty of national governments and their respective telecommunications policies. Burnheim (1999) agrees that state monopolies are obstructing telecommunications services by maintaining and extending inefficient state-owned telecommunications companies (section 3.2). In Ghana, for example, a change from state monopoly to permitting overseas investment in local telecommunications provisions has seen a 67% increase in telephone lines in the three years from 1996 to 1999. However, it has not brought telecommunications services to the rural areas, where more than 75% of the population live (Otabil & Mensah, 2000, p. 22). Burnheim (1999) agrees, that "many African governments would like to maintain sole access to revenue from the new technology" (section 3.2). Inefficiency and lack of customer service are other factors that affect both access and cost. It is reported, for example, that in Africa 1 million people are currently waiting for a telephone line to be installed.

Cost

The cost of Internet access in Africa makes it a medium of communication, which is out of reach for the majority of people. According to Burnheim (1999), "its outreach is largely confined to an educated and affluent elite living in the major cities" (section 4). Where countries have retained traditional, monopolistic telecommunications policies, people outside the major cities have to make a toll call to log onto the Internet. The (1999b) suggests that individual countries can introduce policies that enable all Internet calls to be at the cost of a local call. However, it is the very cost of local calls that constitute the largest part of the expense of maintaining Internet connectivity (section 5). It states:

In many countries where local calls cost upwards of US$4 per hour (in some countries as high as $10/hr), and for anyone dialling long distance, usage is usually restricted to email. There are numerous examples in Africa of organisations provided with an Internet connection that has lapsed due to lack of budget to pay the phone bill or usage charges. (ibid.)

Subscription charges by Internet Service Providers (ISP) constitute another barrier to Internet access and "for most people in Africa it is still prohibitively expensive to use the Internet" (ibid.). In 1998, the average cost of a low-volume Internet account in North America was under $20 per month compared to $65 per month for the lowest services in Africa. With the cost of local calls added, this figure is more than $100 ().

A further cost, which limits access, is the high price of hardware and the import tax which apply to ICT equipment in most African countries. In some cases, peripherals such as modems are taxed at an even higher rate (). Burnheim (1999) also notes that the cost of an average computer is 15 times the per capita GDP of Ethiopia (section 4.1).

IT Expertise

A lack of IT expertise, from maintenance to policy, is another limitation to access. Maintenance, repair and software troubleshooting is a major problem, especially in rural areas, where skilled IT technicians are scarce or non-existent. (1999) reports that many computers are old and often poorly maintained. Numerous computers are not repaired and therefore sit unused. The following quote is from a survey conducted in Mali: "Because it's a new technology in Mali, the equipment isn't repairable. Our modem is broken right now...there's no one to repair it" (Harcourt, 1999, p. 112). Banks (quoted in Lund, 1998) similarly reports "that recent political events in Sierra Leone had rendered the University's system 'completely inoperable', because the system's operator had fled to nearby countries" (p. 34).

This lack of access for the majority of Africans makes the Internet a medium of little direct relevance to most individuals.