Low income takes 800m Nigerians, S’africans, others offline

• Mobile network coverage reaches 88.4% of Africa

ABOUT 272 million people were connected to the mobile Internet across sub- Saharan Africa as of the end of 2019 while some 800 million are still offline between 2020 and now.

The International Telecommunications Union ( ITU) in a document entitled, ‘ Digital trends in Africa 2021: Information and communication technology trends and developments in the Africa region 2017- 2020,’ released at the weekend disclosed this. It attributed the gap in online in the region to the high cost of smartphones, relative to average income level, limited digital skills among rural and less literate population.

In Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission ( NCC) had said there were some 114 access gaps, which housed some 20 million Nigerians still without basic telephony service.

Further, ITU also referred to the Alliance of Affordable Internet ( A4AI), which identified lack of quality of access, which it has termed “meaningful connectivity”, as one key reason why people are not using the Internet in the region.

ITU estimated that 14.3 per cent of households in the African region had Internet access in 2019, compared with 57.4 per cent globally. The proportion of individuals using the Internet in 2019 totalled 28.6 per cent in Africa and 51.4 per cent globally, highlighting the need to bring more people in Africa online.

In terms of households with Internet access, the Africa region shows significant variation: while six countries, namely Mauritius, Cabo Verde, Botswana, Gambia, South Africa and Seychelles lead the region at estimated rates of home access above the world average of 57.4 per cent, most countries have very low home access rates of less than 20 per cent, with 14 countries having a rate of below 10 per cent.

The telecoms body data show that the percentage of individuals using the Internet greatly varies across the Africanregion. In four countries, namely Mauritius, Cabo Verde, Seychelles and South Africa, the proportion of individual Internet users ( for the most recent year) was above the world average of 51.4 per cent. In most countries, individual Internet use is below 30 per cent.

Further, over the last four years, ITU said the region had seen continued, albeit slow growth in most areas of ICT infrastructure, access and use. Mobile cellular coverage in Africa, referring to the percentage of the population that lives within reach of a mobile cellular signal, is estimated at 88.4 per cent. It said just over 77 per cent of the population is now within the reach of a 3G signal, and 44.3 per cent is within the reach of a long- term evolution ( LTE) mobile broadband signal.