{"id":9608,"date":"2016-09-05T08:18:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T04:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=9608"},"modified":"2016-09-05T08:18:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T04:18:01","slug":"lack-of-content-and-service-key-inhibitors-in-african-internet-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2016\/09\/05\/lack-of-content-and-service-key-inhibitors-in-african-internet-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack of content key inhibitor in African internet adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Internet access and availability are not enough to get people online, says a new Internet Society study released at the African Peering and Interconnection Forum taking place in Tanzania. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Promoting%20Content%20in%20Africa.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">The Promoting Content in Africa report <\/a>reveals that while significant improvements have been made in internet infrastructure, most notably in mobile networks, internet adoption rates are slowing in many countries because users lack compelling reasons to connect.<\/p>\n<p>According to the study, content and services are the main factors in making the internet desirable, especially when the subject matter is relevant and in a language that users can easily understand. A lack of local content and services is affecting the number of new online users in Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, local language content is key to bringing new users online, as many are not comfortable reading in English or French.<\/p>\n<p>Promoting Content in Africa outlines the barriers to the development of local content and offers recommendations to improve local content availability and distribution.<\/p>\n<p>In the Sub-Saharan countries studied by the Internet Society, the majority of international and locally developed content is hosted outside the country, typically overseas. This results in slow internet speeds and higher access costs. In Rwanda for example, of all websites using the .RW domain name, only a small fraction is hosted in Rwanda. The majority of sites are hosted in Europe and the US. Hosting content locally is key to making the internet faster and more affordable for users.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"It Starts With A Handshake\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5oIiP-p4zJM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As mobile financial services are becoming increasingly available in the African continent, monetising mobile content is still a major challenge. \u201cFaster and better internet access can help entrepreneurs create new local content including services and apps, but developers face barriers when it comes to payment mechanisms in order to monetise content,\u201d said Bastiaan Quast, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Internet Society Fellow<\/a> and co-author of the report.<\/p>\n<p>Removing barriers to content availability and distribution will have significant impacts on the internet ecosystem in Africa. The region faces a combination of barriers, including the inability to pay and receive payments for mobile apps, which serve as a major channel for content distribution in most African countries.<\/p>\n<p>Hosted by the Internet Society in partnership with the <a href=\"http:\/\/tispa.or.tz\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tanzania Internet Service Providers Association<\/a>, the event serves as a platform to expand internet infrastructure and services across Africa by bringing together key players to address the opportunities in interconnection, peering, and traffic exchange on the continent.<\/p>\n<p>Internet peering is a business relationship whereby two internet service providers agree to provide access to each other\u2019s customers at no cost. Internet users throughout Africa benefit from peering, which enables faster and more affordable access.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemoving barriers to content availability and distribution will have significant impacts on the internet ecosystem in Africa. It will help to make existing international content more accessible,\u201d explained Dawit Bekele, Internet Society Regional Bureau Director for Africa. \u201cAfrican Peering and Interconnection Forum is the only event in Africa focused on building the internet by building relationships. It plays a key role in bringing together different parties to increase local traffic exchange across the continent,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/afpif-2016\/home\" target=\"_blank\">African Peering and Interconnection Forum<\/a> aims to build cross-border interconnection opportunities by facilitating discussions on internet infrastructure challenges including capacity building, development of Internet Exchange Points and local content. Previous editions of African Peering and Interconnection Forum have been held in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal and Mozambique. Last year\u2019s event featured 232 participants from 57 countries and an online participation of 978 people in 77 different countries.<\/p>\n<p>The Internet Society, is the independent source for internet information and thought leadership from around the world. It is also the organisational home for the Internet Engineering Task Force.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/isoc-ny.org\/afpif2016\/slides\/\" target=\"_blank\">AfPIF 2016 slides<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/isoc-ny.org\/afpif2016\/videos\/\" target=\"_blank\">AfPIF 2016 videos<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-9608 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-large'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2016\/09\/05\/lack-of-content-and-service-key-inhibitors-in-african-internet-adoption\/img_7673\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7673.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7673.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7673-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2016\/09\/05\/lack-of-content-and-service-key-inhibitors-in-african-internet-adoption\/img_7644\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7644.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7644.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7644-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2016\/09\/05\/lack-of-content-and-service-key-inhibitors-in-african-internet-adoption\/img_7669\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7669.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7669.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/IMG_7669-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2016\/09\/05\/lack-of-content-and-service-key-inhibitors-in-african-internet-adoption\/internet-society_1000x550\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/internet-society_1000x550.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/internet-society_1000x550.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/internet-society_1000x550-300x165.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/09\/internet-society_1000x550-768x422.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Internet access and availability are not enough to get people online, says a new Internet Society study released at the African Peering and Interconnection Forum taking place in Tanzania. The Promoting Content in Africa report reveals that while significant improvements have been made in internet infrastructure, most notably in mobile networks, internet adoption rates are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":9615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,172,399,382,14],"tags":[3212,3213,3214,3215,323,3216],"class_list":["post-9608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-centres","category-events","category-more-news","category-telecom","category-video","tag-african-internet-adoption","tag-african-peering-and-interconnection-forum","tag-bastiaan-quast","tag-tanzania-internet-service-providers-association","tag-the-internet-society","tag-the-promoting-content-in-africa"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}