Broadband in Africa

Before resuming the Tanzanian stories - or changing subject even - a digression.

Broadband connection in Tanzania wasn't great, no surprises there. A (rather slow) Internet access was available at the hotel in Arusha, some sort of Internet café (without coffee) with 90s style computers in Nungwi (Zanzibar) and a slightly better business point in the hotel in Dar Es Salaam.

But locals (source: Isack the driver-guide) had hopes: some optical fibre cable had reached East Africa (Mombasa) and soon would Internet traffic be routed faster.

Come back to Europe and suddenly broadband in Africa is a debated topic.

For example, courtesy of a colleague, I learnt that in Africa, instead of broadband, one can use a pigeon carrying a USB to transfer data:

Broadband promised to unite the world with super-fast data delivery - but in South Africa it seems the web is still no faster than a humble pigeon. BBC News

Few days later, the web is full of reports on fibre optic in East Africa (Isack's info was correct).

BBC here, talking about the economics of Broadband take up. Prof. Juma talking about it at the Berkman Center in Harvard.

Pondering: maybe my next broadband project could be for Africa.