Can Uganda Afford Being Online?

By Rogers M. Wanambwa  

Kampala, Uganda (RTN) - Given  the state of quarantine we're in now, it is imperative that we as the Uganda at large start thinking about conducting business and other activities like education online with much more frequency than we're currently doing so. This, however, is more easier than done as A4AI defines internet as being affordable when 1GB of mobile data is priced at no more than 2% of average income, Africa falls far short as 1GB costs 8% of average income on average across the continent. In comparison it costs 2.7% in the Americas and 1.5% in Asia.

A report by Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) shows the average price of a gigabyte (GB) of data (relative to income) has dropped over the past years, but not quickly enough to shore up “the existing digital divide” between low-income and middle-income countries globally. Couple this with internet shutdowns things remain grim in this area(last year according to the same report, Africa experienced a combined 8000hours of internet shutdowns).

But high costs are not the only barrier to internet access across the continent with internet shutdowns now happening more frequently in Africa than anywhere else. And a report from the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) shows African countries led by authoritarians are more susceptible to these shutdowns. In fact, of the 22 African states that have disrupted internet access in the last five years, 77% are listed as dictatorships, while 23% are considered partial democracies.

"These shutdowns cost Africa $2.1billion last year"

According to statistics from Uganda Communications Commission and www.internetstats.com, of the 45.7 million Ugandans, the Internet penetration stands at 19 million users, of which 2.5 million of these are active social media users. This implies that 41.6% of the population have access to the internet, and 5.5% uses the access for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, and the likes.

The reason I bring in social media apps like WhatsApp is because it is one of the tools currently being used by some universities like KIU for conducting studies and many students spend a lot of their time on them. Lecturers and students do share notes among other things on the platform. Of course, this is just one use of such platforms but it appeared to hold a lot of substance to the writer(maybe there's a little predisposition I'll admit).

What can be done?

Consider these four models of business collaborations:

-Innovation and R&D

-Technology transfer

-Consultancy

-Product commercialization

I'll deal with the later for this article. In January 2020, a new London based telecom company called Lyca Mobile joined Uganda. What the KIU community can do is to form a partnership with said company to provide it and its students with cheap and readily available internet(the company is trying to make this its niche) in exchange for product commercialization. Given the fact that KIU is a large community, they would be a good business partner. The students would provide free advertisement for the company as they use their services(as social influences).

The reason I gave this particular company as an example is because it still has a small customer base and it would be in favour of the university to deal with it.

This is just one way that this university and its community(students, staff, etc) can stay online and catch up with their studies and other university business. 

So how about other businesses and individuals?

I do believe governments have a role to play here. Yeah, we cannot do without them! Governments should negotiate favourable terms for their citizens. Telecom companies earn ridiculous amounts of profits from Africans through providing their services. As of 2020, over 520million Africans have access to the internet(of these only 19million are Ugandans as already seen).

My point here is that our governments should negotiate better prices for internet packages for us and also help the companies in rolling out internet fiber cables and the like. By convincing the population that this is in their favour, it will reduce on the costs and inadvertently, the price a consumer has to pay to get internet.

Another thing would be reducing the taxes levied on the companies with the agreement to reduce the prices charged.

In conclusion, can Ugandans afford being online? For now, very few of us will be able to.