Angola took a big step forward in the telecommunications sector, reveal data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for 2021 and included in the 2022 report. (RNB per capita), fell by more than half.
Internet accessibility rose by 7 percentage points between 2017 and 2021, going from 26% to 33% (33 out of every 100 Angolans had access to the internet) and is close to the African average of 40%. And the weight of a low-cost data and voice package for mobile phones is close to 2%, which is the digital connectivity target to be achieved in 2030, stipulated by the United Nations agency dedicated to information and communication technologies.
In early 2023, the ITU and the Office of the UN Secretary-General's Envoy for Technology announced ambitious targets for universal and meaningful digital connectivity by 2030. Affordability, defined as the availability of broadband access to a price less than 2% of GNI per capita monthly, has been identified as a priority to ensure that everyone can fully benefit from connectivity.
The global average price of mobile broadband services (measured by the price of the lowest mobile data package relative to GNI per capita) was 1,9% in 2021. In Angola it stood at 2,4%, well below the African average of 7,1%, with great disparity between countries, ranging from 38% in Niger to 0,66 in Tunisia, the country with the lowest internet costs on the continent (see infographic).
With regard to accessibility, Angola has taken more timid steps, with an increase of one percentage point per year since 2019, after three big leaps in 2016, 2017 and 2018, settling at 33%, 7 percentage points below the average of African continent. Accessibility is measured by the proportion of individuals who used the internet from any location in the last three months. Access can be via a fixed or mobile network.
As the fixed internet service requires large investments in infrastructure, mobile broadband, which allows access to the internet from a smartphone, has become a reference for global use, as it provides relatively cheap access compared to the fixed service, underlines the ITU. It is also mobile services that have made the Internet advance in developing countries, where “many people still live in the digital darkness”, according to Doreen Bogdan-Martin, director of the ITU Telecommunications Development Office.
It is precisely in fixed internet services that Angola registers the least advances, with a connectivity of 0,79% (per 100 people), well below the global average of 18%, although the country is above the African average of 0,70%. The Seychelles and Mauritius, two small territories, lead in Africa, with 39% and 25%, and South Sudan is at the tail, with 0,0019%.
But it is in the costs of accessing telecommunications that Angola has made the most progress in recent years, according to ITU data, which still does not reflect the entry of the fourth mobile operator, Africell, in 2022, as they only go until 2021.
Angola closes the top 10 countries with the cheapest costs in Africa, alongside South Africa, with 2,4%. This indicator is measured by the weight of a low-consumption mobile data and voice package in relation to Gross National Income. per capita. The top 10 is led by Tunisia (0,66%), followed by Egypt (0,78%) and Morocco (1,1%), three North African countries.
Guilherme Massala, computer engineer and contributor to the Menos Fios portal, specializing in new technologies, assumes that the drop in telecommunications costs is obvious and there is no way not to recognize it. Still, the price of telecommunications remains an “Achilles heel for many families”. This, along with problems of lack of coverage, even in Luanda and in urban areas, prevents many families and companies from accessing a service with enormous potential to improve their income and their businesses.
Globally, according to the 2022 ITU report, it is estimated that the percentage of Internet users will be twice as high in urban areas as in rural areas by 2020. Lower rural usage is partly a result of lack of infrastructure , but there are additional factors at play. “Rural areas generally have lower income levels, and the population often has lower levels of education and lower levels of ICT skills, all of which are negatively correlated with internet use,” says the UN agency.
