Africa left behind in Internet development, again

A new report shows that Africa is continuing to lose ground to the rest of the world in terms of Internet infrastructure.

According to Packet Geography 2002, a report by the US-based TeleGeography, international Internet bandwidth from Africa grew the slowest in the world at 89.6%, from 649.2 Mbps in 2000 to 1 230.8 Mbps in 2001. That is compared to a world average growth of 174% and Latin America`s 479% increase.

This leaves the African continent with 13 times less international bandwidth than second-least connected Latin America and nearly 223 times less than the combined connectivity of North America.

"As a whole, international Internet bandwidth deployments slowed in 2001," the report says. "International Internet backbones registered a combined 174% growth in 2001 that, while significant, was only half of 2000`s 382% increase."

When the data from Packet Geography is combined with that of the Population Reference Bureau`s 2001 World population data sheet, it shows that the average North American resident has access to around 570 times more international bandwidth than the average African citizen.

Yet while the report finds that an overwhelming percentage of global bandwidth flows to and from North America, it also says that reliance on the United States as a switching centre is slowly decreasing as regions establish their own switching centres. New connections in North Africa led to 10% of the international bandwidth there shifting from North America to Europe. TeleGeography also estimates that there are now 152 local Internet exchange (IX) points worldwide, such as South Africa`s JINX and CINX points in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively.

"While IX points do not represent more than 15% of Internet traffic exchange by some estimates, they do serve to separate their crucial interconnection role from the carriers themselves," the company says.

Africa`s connectivity shows a healthy balance, with nearly half as much capacity to Europe as it has to North America. Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America, on the other hand, all have a very large percentage of their international connections to the United States and Canada with relatively insignificant circuits between one another.