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African cellphone subscriptions have grown faster than any other region, but it lacks broadband.
Since 2003 users have increased from 54 million to almost 350 million in 2008, but urgent action to improve slow and costly Internet access on the continent needs to be taken.
This is according to a recently released report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which states that while digital inequality is shrinking, the gap varies according to the type of technology.
Five countries – Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia – account for 90% of all African broadband subscriptions. Australia, with 21 million inhabitants, has more broadband subscribers than the whole of Africa, according to the report.
And while the report points to “occasional success stories”, the finding is that the promise of wireless broadband for developing countries is still far from being realised, with little evidence that it has had a significant impact on a wide scale.
The UN points to affordability as a key inhibitor of broadband use: In 2008, the average fixed broadband price at purchasing power parity was $27.6 for developed countries and $289 for developing countries. Of the 20 countries with the most expensive broadband, 14 are in sub-Saharan Africa; perhaps unsurprisingly, the region has the lowest per-capita international bandwidth in the world.
