Nigeria’s Internet maturity lags behind South Africa, others

IN terms of the maturity of the Internet ecosystem in Africa, South Africa has edged Nigeria, Kenya and others.

According to the draft final report of the 2023 Africa Domain Name Industry Study by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ( ICANN), South Africa has the highest number of Internet domain registrations, as well as Internet exchange points ( IXPS) on the African continent.

The report showed that SA has over 1.3 million domain names registered, and the bulk of these are in the co. za registry; Nigeria's . ng has about 183,000 and Kenya's . ke, 156,000.

ICANN noted that the uptake of domain names locally is also affected by the individual country's ICT regulations and laws. For example, it noted that fear of domain shut down by the government led to many users resorting to generic domain names.

According to the study, as of November 2023, the total number of domains registered under African cctlds was just over 4.3 million, stressing that in addition, there are about 1.4 million registrations in the GTLDS by African entities.

It said approximately one per cent of GTLD domains are registered by Africans and registrations by Africans of GTLD domains total approximately 1.4 million, the bulk of which (~ 1.2 million) are . COM domains.

ICANN said research indicated that high Internet access costs, the lack of digital infrastructure and the fact that African Internet access is primarily via mobile devices has constrained demand for domain names.

Contextualizing the DNS industry within the overall African Internet and digital communications infrastructure ecosystem, the report noted that although Africa is a very diverse region, most countries on the continent fall at the bottom of the global rankings of digital uptake and use. For example, it said that of the 33 lowestranked countries in the 2023 Networked Readiness Report, all are in Africa.

The study said in terms of Internet Protocol ( IP) resources, out of the global usage, Africa accounted for only 2.4 per cent of IPV4 and one per cent of IPV6 addresses.