Participation of Regulators in the Development of
 Internet Technology in Africa
 16th SEP 2006

Africa's net community wants to see better representation of its interests in the future. The seventh annual meeting of the semiofficial African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) was held on May 15, 2006 and included participants from more than 30 African countries. The result was a memorandum for better articulation of African interests and for closer collaboration with other African Internet initiatives. AfNOG founder and former director of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Nii Quaynor explained that Africa does not accept being left behind in further development of the Internet.

In reference to the fast-growing level of Internet activity in Africa, Mr Quaynor said, “This may be an indication of a maturing technical community in Africa. This can be seen by the growth in attendance at AfNOG events and the diversity of people attending portions of the event. We also note new and wider interests in capacity development, the infrastructure of information and communication technology in Africa, and the well-received proposals of public private partnerships like the ‘interconnecting Africa EU’ initiative. Expertise to manage the networks, in general, is growing, and confidence in African networks is increasing. I am pleased to note this is a good sign for Africa, since the continent is the newest market for investment in the Internet industry.

It’s commonly believed that average user penetration in Africa is about a paltry 3 percent, which shows a glaring market opportunity.  User penetration of the Internet is difficult to estimate to any significant degree of confidence. The continent achieved full Internet connectivity with all capital cities in 2000. The number of users for many countries in Africa is growing at rates in excess of 1,000 percent a year, and this imposes a huge demand on competent technical expertise to manage the networks.

Internet access in Africa is still too expensive, Mr Quaynor explained.  The principal cost components are bandwidth costs, scarce technical human resources, and equipment. A typical individual subscriber service might cost 20 US Dollars per month as compared to a one US Dollar per day average income. But, there is disposable income fueling the market, given that the early adopters are from higher income brackets and a large number of users employ universal access solutions such as cyber cafes, public Internet access terminals, or the equivalent.

Mr Quaynor expressed the role of AfNOG as “the umbrella technical capacity-building forum for Internet resource organizations to meet and thus cooperates with all the initiatives. Our organization is often the initiator and incubator for these organizations. As a result, AfNOG became the forum for developing consensus on the establishment of the African Region Internet Registry (AfriNIC). It took about a decade to establish AfriNIC and to convince the global community of Africa’s readiness. As a regional Internet registry, AfriNIC shares its operator community with AfNOG. The success of AfriNIC since its inception 18 months ago illustrates the technical, policy, and business readiness of the African Internet community. AfNOG and AfriNIC have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate and co-host their annual meetings”.

The Africa Top Level Domains Organization (AfTLD) shares a similar community of operators with AfNOG. In the past, the association of African Internet Service Provider Associations (AfrISPA) has used AfNOG technical notes to teach Internet exchange points to its community. Right now, AfNOG is beginning to court the African ICANN lobby group, the African Regional At-Large Organization (AFRALO) and is cooperating with the African Internet society, ISOC INET. This networking is easier because AfrISPA and ISOC INET hold their annual meetings during the AfNOG event. Furthermore, an African research and academic networks community (AfREN) was activated during the last AfNOG meeting in Nairobi. AfriNIC, AfNOG, and the African Association of Universities agreed to cooperate to strengthen next generation of campus networks in Africa.

With regard to the body’s relationship with NEPAD and Bill Gates Foundation, Quaynor said that AfriNIC and AfNOG have all been previously endorsed and supported by the eAfrica Commission of NEPAD. He has been a commissioner for Internet and Software of the eAfrica Commission and thinks that support from the Bill Gates foundation would be very relevant given the enormous need.

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