A new study has revealed
why the Internet growth on the African continent is slow, just as lack of local
content is worsening the decline, reports ITRealms.
The study on “Promoting
Content in Africa” led by the Internet Society examined Internet access and
availability to get people online, was released at the ongoing African Peering
and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) holding in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
ITRealms gathered from
the co-author of the report and Internet Society Fellow, Bastiaan Quast, that
they looked critically at infrastructure, mostly in mobile networks, stressing
that Internet adoption rates are slowing in many countries because users lack
compelling reasons to connect.
In addition, Quast
revealed, content and services are the main factors in making the Internet
desirable, especially when the subject matter is relevant and in a language
that users could easily understand.
Noting that lack of
local content and services are affecting the number of new online users in
Africa.
“In Sub-Saharan Africa
in particular, local language content is key to bringing new users online, as
many are not comfortable reading in English or French” part of the report read.
The study also outlined the
barriers to the development of local content and offers recommendations to improve
local content availability and distribution.
In the Sub-Saharan
countries, for instance, ITRealms reports that the majority of international and locally developed content are hosted outside the country, typically
overseas.
This, ITRealms reports,
resulted in slow Internet speeds and higher access costs, just as in Rwanda for
example, of all websites using the .RW domain names, only a small fraction were
hosted in Rwanda.
“The majority of sites
are hosted in Europe and the U.S. Hosting content locally is key to
making the Internet faster and more affordable for users,” ISOC said in the study.
As mobile financial
services are becoming increasingly available in the African continent,
monetizing mobile content is still a major challenge.
“Faster and better
Internet access can help entrepreneurs create new local content including
services and apps, but developers face barriers when it comes to payment
mechanisms in order to monetize content,” Quast said.
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