http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/
There’s been much discussion lately about how Africa’s bandwidth is too little, and too expensive. I’d argue, in fact, that this bandwidth problem, coupled with insane bureaucracy and corruption have kept prices in Africa largely artificially high.
OLPC News makes the point: “Until recently, for example, the Fantsuam Foundation in Nigeria was paying $1700 a month for a 128Kbps satellite link, whereas I pay $35/month for 6 Mbps.”
Others, including Kenyan Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta have predicted that 2009 and 2010 will be big years for the continent, what with the EASSY cable being laid.
Russell Southwood, of the Balancing Act newsletter, writesSatcom 09: Africa’s satellite providers find themselves looking at a less rosy future, which theoretically should mean that satellite prices should drop from their oligarchic levels to something more reasonable, and that long-distance wireless providers are increasing their level of service.
Steve Song’s been closely following these issues on his blog: “Many Possibilities“.
Still though — and I’m no expert on this issue — it seems that while its easy to get caught up in this hype, I’m not going to believe that this will actually make a marked difference until more Africans are actually online. That’s something that’s going to require significant increases in education, literacy and training. In other words, that’s something that all the bandwidth in the world can’t fix.
