ISPs call for Afro-centric Web content

By Vanessa Haarhoff, ITWeb African correspondent

Johannesburg, 29 Mar 2006

The lack of African content on the Internet is becoming a major concern and could affect the socio-economic developmental growth of Africa as a continent if not addressed soon.

This is according to Eric Osiakwan the executive secretary of the African Internet Service Providers Association (AFRISPA), who was addressing the Digital Africa Summit, 22 to 24 March in Cape Town.

William Stucke, chairman of AFRISPA, told the summit the lack of local content on the Internet needs to be re-assessed from an African viewpoint.

"There is a lack of Afro-centric content on the Internet, which urgently needs to be tackled," said Stucke.

Africa claims only 0.2% of the Internet domain space for 14% of the global population, according to a survey conducted by AFRISPA in November 2005.

Local connectivity

The production of local content was being inhibited by high connectivity costs and slow local connections experienced in Africa, Stucke said.

"At the moment there are very few local Internet exchange points (IXPs) in Africa, so most local Web pages are hosted by the US or UK, which is causing Internet users to be routed to foreign ISPs then re-routed back to Africa, causing high connection rates."

The solution is to provide as many local IXPs as possible, said Stucke. "At present there are 14 local IXPs around Africa, and by 2007 this figure should have doubled."

Blogs

"It is not just a matter of having access which increases Internet use, but a desire to seek out content that is relevant and appealing to the user," said Osiakwan, adding the main reason for growth of Internet use by Africans is the presence of local content.

Stucke emphasised the growth of local content could be enhanced with personal Web spaces or blogs hosted by African ISPs.

"ISPs in Africa should give free personal Web space and Web publishing tools to clients who have an existing e-mail account, to encourage the growth of local content. This in turn will foster the local content development, server configuration and server hosting industries," Stucke concluded.