African Internet Access

Again: A typical thing when it comes to Africa - or rather over-seeing Africa. Look at the map, the dotted lines indicate something which is not there, but should be.

Most parts of the world benefit from a sub-water optic cable making them able to run the Internet. However the sub-water cable runs around the Arabian peninsula, misses out on the African Horn, Kenya, Tanzania and Mocambique. Not surprisingly, there's is one again working for South Africa.

In the parts of Africa where they actually got it working, it hasn't provided the benefits of cheaper, faster Internet acces. One thing is that the nations with access to the sea have evident benefits – the immidiate access - another thing is if the Internet is provided and controlled by state-owned monopolies – hence those will set the prices with no space for competition. There has been a plan for East Africa. However, now it seems that it will be an even longer while regarding as the process has been stopped by disagreements. The original plan, to be implemented by East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy), was originally expected to be operational at the beginning of 2008, but now Kenya has refused to sign up to a 23-nation plan to build an undersea telecommunications cable, after disagreeing with South Africa about the cost and management of the project. This doesn't only effect Kenya, also Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Somalia. The importance of the sub-water cable, in oppose to an Internet system via the satelitte system (as in Uganda) is definitely a significant difference to download speeds and prices.

Being land-locked – and dynamic - Uganda couldn't wait for this. They got the Internet working in most corners of Uganda, and here I enjoy my mobile, relatively fast satelitte-on-line-connection. However, more or less monopolised, too, I'm also paying for it. Anyway, importance of access to the Internet in developing countries shouldn't be underestimated, and I hope that Kenya is serious when they talk about doing it themselves.

Comments

[P]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EASSY

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4787422.stm

[Kasper]

Hej Pernille,
Hvor har du fundet oplysningerne om fiberkablerne?