According to the fifth annual accessibility report released by Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), more than two billion people live in countries with inaccessible internet, many of them in Africa, which is resulting in a slowdown in adoption rates.
This is a situation that has barely improved in the last year, with progress in front of the painfully slow policy, means that more than 2,3 billions still can not afford 1 GB of data. As a result, there has been a serious slowdown in the rate at which people are getting online.
Last year's report predicted that global Internet penetration would reach 50% by the end of 2017, but a drop in growth in Internet access and use means that A4AI has now revised the date for mid-2019.
The inability to pay for a basic internet connection remains one of the most significant - and solvable - barriers to access. This issue is particularly acute in low- and middle-income countries, where 1 GB of data costs more than 5% of what people earn in a month - a price that is well above the 1 GB data limit with prices of 2% . or less than average income.
The report blames this on the fact that policy progress is slowing, with insufficient governments adopting mechanisms such as universal service funds (USFs) to ensure that more people can afford to pay for Internet connectivity faster.
In total, more than 60% of countries have an inaccessible network. Of the 61 countries studied, only 24 had access to the Internet, with seven of them Africans: Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Botswana and Tunisia.
“While we have seen some positive points in the political leadership needed to promote affordable Internet access, we are deeply concerned to see that policy progress has stalled. The lack of prioritization of broadband policy reforms has left billions of people offline and contributed to a significant slowdown in the rate of entry of people, ”said the executive director of A4AI, Sonia Jorge.
