Rural connectivity poor

Kenya: Africa’s growth in mobile telephony has been remarkable. But lack of adequate infrastructure to support telecommunication providers to connect rural communities to the internet is the biggest setback, a leading African Internet Service Provider says.

“The proliferation of submarine cables on the East African coast such as EASSY, TEAMS, SEACOM and LION2 has meant that Internet connectivity in Kenya is extensive on the coastal city of Mombasa where the cables land, but other than connecting the capital city Nairobi, there is a dearth of real broadband everywhere else inland,’’ says Ken Munyi, the managing director, iWayAfrica Kenya. “While recent research data has named Kenya as the number three on the African continent in terms of average broadband speeds per country, we face the challenges of being able to reach far into the rural areas where people are in dire need of connectivity.” He says it is in the remote places where terrestrial or copper based technologies cannot reach and ISPs have been forced to use expensive ways to resolve the issues.

According to Informa Telecoms and Media, a research body on use of ICT and its penetration, the ICT sector, if well harnessed, will transform Africa and allow the continent to become a fully joined up member of the global knowledge economy. As Africa grapples with its next phase of economic development it simultaneously faces its biggest opportunity and challenge with the Internet, he adds.

“In light of this, IWayAfrica has partnered with Avanti Communications to launch IWayAfriKa Service to make broadband service available in the region. The new service overcomes traditional broadband satellite limitations on throughput and cost creating a whole new scale of possibilities for the region.”