Internet Penetration in Ethiopia
alex September 26th, 2008
Have been connection-less for the last few days as the PCs we’d been using at the Red Cross Centre have been taken away and have then been finding my feet in Mekelle, so I’m making a few posts all in one go…
(22nd Sept)
Got my hands on a copy of ICT Monthly - which is the main (only?) IT magazine in Ethiopia, and its got some info on the internet penetration in Ethiopia (0.2%), which is extremely low, in Africa only Liberia is lower, even Somalia is higher (at 0.8%). More stats are available at http://www.internetmonthlystats.com (though not had chance to have a look myself).
Not sure exactly what is meant by ‘penetration’, but *think* it’s related to the number of accounts with ISP relative to the total population. Also the reasons as to why Ethiopia should be so much lower than other neighbouring countries (Sudan - 8%) are unclear.
We’ve spent the last couple of days in a IT workshop wich some of the other VSO volunteers who’ve been here for the last year or so. Has been excellent hearing about their experiences, but also some horrendous stories about wasted money, lack of planning, poor connections. Just one example is that fact that they’re building 12 new universities in Ethiopia - all to the same design - but they haven’t made any provision for IT installation, which means the nice new buildings will now need to have holes cut through walls and all the cabling installed for any form of network or computer room to be installed. I’m guessing that this isn’t the last of these sort of stories that I’ll be hearing over the coming months!
Wow - that’s low … but it is typical in developing countries to have low internet penetration … with internet being higher around the city and decreasing rapidly as you move away from it … and not only there is decrease in the amount of internet - but as well as speed … and dial-up (horror upon horror!) might still be the norm
Yes - the speeds can be really low here - even in Addis, most of the connections are still dial-up. Those connections that are described as broadband may be as low as about 76kbps, the most I’ve
seen so far is 128kbps (shared between a _lot_ of users) - which is obviously a way off the 2Mb+speeds we’re used to in the UK.
Mekelle Uni is in the process of upgrading their internet connection to 2Mb, but that will be shared across the whole business school campus.
Any signs there of the mobile internet revolution that it is said will enable countries in this situation to leapfrog fixed lines for telephone and data?
Not so far as I can tell yet James. Owning and using a mobile is still a fairly expensive business here. A SIM card costs 368 birr (just under 40 USD) and then even the most basic handset is another 400+ birr (40+ USD). On top of that SIM cards aren’t always available and when you do get one you need to spend at least 25 birr (3 USD) a month to keep the SIM working (so I’ve heard). All of which probably puts mobile ownership out of reach for most people.