Why isn't Internet in Kenya affordable?

Internet services are becoming increasingly indispensable, even in Africa’s developing economies.

Just like voice communication, access to and use of the Internet is likely to be considered a basic need for any citizen living in the 21st century. Indeed, many of those born within the last two decades would gladly skip lunch in order to buy that “data bundle” that opens up their mobile connection to the Internet.

Whereas this may be celebrated as the mark of a digital generation, it may also point out to the fact that Internet services remain unaffordable for large sections of the population. We should not be offering our youth a choice between food and communication.

Many, nevertheless, would argue that Internet services in Kenya are very affordable, given that regular statistics from the communication authority shows over 60 per cent of Kenyans use the Internet regularly.

Furthermore, Kenya ranks highly as one of the Twitter and Facebook capitals of Africa. Conclusion? Kenyans must be finding getting online and sustaining their online lifestyles very cheap.

INTERNET FOR 'WANJIKU'

But the question is how many of these Netizens are skipping lunch in order to get online.

How many are being forced to choose between walking to work or school and affording their next data bundle? Of course the simple answer is that we may not know, unless someone does a scientific research.

Perhaps this would be a better question for our numerous polling agencies to ask, as opposed to their usual, and now monotonous, political popularity questions. But before then we can still make some inferences from existing data sets. 

The latest annual ITU statistics (2014) that measure the Information Society indicates that Kenya is ranked at number 146 out of 165 economies in terms of providing affordable broadband Internet services. Specifically, the report says that Kenyans must fork out 45 per cent of their average monthly income if they want to access broadband Internet on a monthly basis.

A broadband link by ITU’s definition is a good quality, non-contended 1MB fixed link. They are currently retailing for between Sh3,500 and Sh5,000 per month. Whereas this is loose change for our privileged brothers and sisters in the leafy suburbs of Karen and Runda, it remains unaffordable for “Wanjiku”, whose average monthly income, according to the World Bank data, is $100 or around Sh9,000.

Worse still, the same ITU report ranks Uganda ahead of Kenya at position 139 out of 165 economies in terms of providing affordable broadband Internet.

Ugandans are forking out 32 per cent of their average incomes to get broadband Internet — which ironically has to transit through Kenyan territory towards Mombasa and onto the international submarine cables.

BROADBAND AT SH450

However, one may argue, and rightly so, that Internet access in Kenya is largely through mobile rather than fixed (fibre) links and that we should, therefore, be reviewing the affordability structures for mobile Internet services instead of fixed broadband Internet. Unfortunately, we are not doing that well on the mobile Internet affordability ratings either.

Kenya is ranked at number 111 out of 150 listed economies, with Kenyans having to spend 7.5 per cent of their average incomes for 500MB of data bundles per month. 

Whereas we are better off compared with the Ugandans, who spend 18 per cent of their average incomes on mobile Internet, we are still far behind Nigerians and South Africans, who spend 5.6 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively, of their average incomes on mobile Internet.

Over and above the statistics, the ideal situation, according to the UN Broadband commission, is that all citizens should have access to Internet broadband that costs below 5 per cent of their gross (average) national incomes (GNI). Considering Kenya's GNI stands around $100, 5 per cent of this translates to a suggested price of $5 or Sh450 per month for a good-quality, 1MB non-contended Internet link.

Of course this is a tall order, and may not be achieved immediately. However, it should form part of our collective expectations as a nation.

After all, 98 of the 165 economies listed in the ITU report are already enjoying Internet broadband rates that are below 5 per cent of their average incomes, including African countries like Mauritius, Egypt and South Africa. What is stopping us from joining them?

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter:@jwalu email: [email protected]