Here’s what has become a million-dollar-question: Why are Internet prices so high in Africa’s richest country (South Africa) when they are affordable elsewhere?
Well, it could be that South Africa still has too little bandwidth for its needs and private providers are still investing a lot of money to increase capacity. That cost is therefore passed on to the users.
The high cost, lack of access and slow connectivity hampers economic growth and job creation.
The World Bank has identified broadband connectivity as a key catalyst for economic growth with every 10% increase in connectivity enabling a 1.38% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
At an average connection speed of 2.1 Mbps, South Africa is below the global average of 3.1 Mbps and far behind the top ten countries who all achieve average connectivity speeds between 8.2 and 14.2 Mbps. It is imperative that South Africa reach this standard in order to stimulate economic growth and job creation.
I personally think that our government should begin to invest in intensifying bandwidth in order for our citizens to access information faster and cheaper.
It will then depend on investors and mega cellular network companies to do this, it also could be a mission impossible as their more concern about profit than community development. This issue of expensive data has a direct impact on the low number of people using internet in South African.
If data was cheap in South African a lot of small businesses were not going to close shops faster. Instead of an entrepreneur driving more than 300 km to submit a proposal, it could be done through emails which cheaper than driving and paying e-tolls.
We will see an increasing number of people using internet and social media if data becomes cheaper.
