| has gloss | eng: The penetration of Internet in Africa is quite limited compared to the rest of the world. Measurable parameters such as the number of ISP-registered users, overall number of hosts, IXP-traffic, and overall available bandwidth all indicate that Africa is way behind the "digital divide". Moreover, Africa itself exhibits an inner digital divide, with most Internet activity and infrastructure concrentrated in South Africa, Morocco and Egypt and smaller economies like Mauritius and Seychelles. One of the most basic issues to be faced by Internet users in Africa is that the overall available bandwidth is scarce. Most Internet traffic to or from Africa has to go through expensive satellite links, since cable connections are few and limited in capacity. This has the effect to boost the cost of Internet use, especially for broadband. In 2007, Africa had about 1,000,000 broadband subscribers overall, most of them being companies and institutions. |
