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African Internet users pay on an average 90 times more than what Americans
pay, crippling efforts by the world's poorest continent to become competitive,
a senior Kenyan official said.
Internet users in America pay $20 for one gigabyte of data per month, but
people in Africa pay about $1,800 for the same amount of data, minister for
Information and Communication, Mutahi Kagwe said in a speech read on his behalf
by Permanent Secretary, Bitange Ndemo.
That's partly because the infrastructure-strapped continent spends millions
of dollars every year to route data and voice traffic from one African country
to another through Europe or North America, Kagwe said.
“The only undersea fiber optic cable to connect several African countries
and the rest of the world remains the most expensive in the world and
contributes to the high costs of bandwidth in Africa,” Kagwe told participants
at the Africa Information and Communication Technology conference.
Only about 1.5% of Africa's estimated 906 mn people are connected to the
Internet. By contrast, more than 70% of people in Hong Kong are online, Kagwe
said.
“We are behind almost everybody,” he said.
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