NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - African Internet users pay on average 90 times 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 US 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 fibre 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 per cent of Africa's estimated 906 million people are connected to the Internet. By contrast, more than 70 per cent of people in Hong Kong are online, Kagwe said.

"We are behind almost everybody," he said.


Source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/21052006/2/ztechnology-official-africa-charges-net.html

Simple. It cost 90 times more to provide such service. Security, power, tax/licenses etc

We did not invent the internet, it's virtually impossible for us to be paying less or equal for a service we are borrowing. Besides you forget that some of the things that compound the problem include poor or obsolete equipment, poor infrastructure, high tax rates all things that are non-existent in America!

You can't pay less for what you don't own, when african's have invented their own internet, they can then decide how much they want to pay until then the owners just have to be king!

We don't pay 90 times more for Internet access. the 90x figure is for bandwidth cost and the typical internet user in Africa uses much less bandwidth than her American counterparts.

Hello Seun,
what is the diff between Internet access and Bandwidth.

Mind you, cost of Bandwidth is a recurring expenditure, the high cost will at the end of have a geometric effect on the cost of providing the Internet services.

I pay $100 per month for dial-up access.

My American counterpart pays $50 per month for access, but enjoys 45 times my download speed (broadband).

In this case, I am paying 2 times what the American paying for access, but 90 times more for bandwidth.

Seun,
we are saying the same thing. I
t will cost u 90times to get tha same bandwidth size as ur american friend.
Simple.

What could be the reasons for these huge differences??

The title says "charged 90 times more for access, which is not so"

I pay $100 per month for dial-up access.

My American counterpart pays $50 per month for access, but enjoys 45 times my download speed (broadband).

In this case, I am paying 2 times what the American paying for access, but 90 times more for bandwidth.

Seun,
Are you not overpaying?
Or is it for 24/7 dial-up access?

How do you cope with dial-up compared to broadband?