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Appendix 26. Bridging the digital divide: South Africa

Phil Charles

January 2008

More and more people are gaining access to the internet at work and at home, and broadband

services are increasing in speed while simultaneously decreasing in cost. So `Digital Divide'

between and the rest of the word (especially Europe and USA) is not immediately apparent to

many people. But a glance below the surface tells a very different story. Something needs to be

done urgently.

Africa and the digital divide:

The data connection speed (TCP, or Transmission Control Protocol, or throughput, or simply the

speed at which data can be moved around on the internet) between the USA and the other world

regions have evolved exponentially over the past decade as shown in

Figure 84: Throughput measured from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in

California to various regions of the world, showing the relative growth in the achievable

throughput over the past 12 years.

The Average growth rate has seen the speed increasing by an amazing 30% per year or a factor 10

in a decade, but Africa has seen by far the poorest level of improvement. Internet performance

can be measured in other ways too as the digital access index, the cost of Internet access, the % of

data losses, the unreachability of sites, congestion, and the quality of VOIP connections. All have

one thing in common: Africa is at the bottom53

53

For details about measures of Internet performance see www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger

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