Revealing Ghana's Internet Potential
Current statistics show that Ghana's adoption of the internet is soaring, but the nation still lags behind many African countries.
In 2000, Ghana had merely 30,000 Internet users, representing 0.2 per cent of the population.
This was a time when three out of every five internet users world-wide were from Europe and North America; a time before Google, YouTube and Facebook.
A decade later and the Internet landscape has changed dramatically. Africa is now leading the world in Internet adoption, growing at an average rate of 2,357 per cent; almost double that of Asia - today's largest online population.
Current statistics from the analytics website, Internet World Stats, shows that the number of Ghanaians accessing the Internet has grown by 4,223 per cent over the past 10 years.
To put such numbers into perspective, that is 30 times the rate of growth experienced by North America over the same period.
As a result, in June 2010 there were 1,297,000 Internet users in Ghana; a number that is increasing steadily, with no signs of slowing down in the near future.
Yet while the rapid growth of Internet adoption in Ghana has been a welcomed trend, in absolute terms the country still has a long way to go. As a percentage of the country's population, Internet users only represent 5.3 per cent of citizens.
Comparing such Internet penetration to mature online markets in Europe (58.4 per cent population penetration) or North America (77.4 per cent) reveals a predictable disparity.
But Ghana needs only to look at many of its African neighbours to see that it is by no means at the forefront of the continent’s Internet revival.
Look across the border to Togo and you will find a larger proportion of the population (5.7 per cent) going online. Venture further east and there lies Nigeria with 44 million Internet users or 28.9 per cent of its population online.
Even conflict-afflicted Cote d'Ivoire is achieving proximate penetration numbers to Ghana’s 4.6 per cent of its nationals using the Internet.
Africa as a continent has 10.9 per cent of its population online. Ghana has less than half.
The nation currently ranks 24th among African states in Internet penetration. While the growth in local Internet users has been extremely strong, Ghana has been a late starter compared to other parts of Africa, rising from humble beginnings.
Observers point to various factors on Internet development, ranging from insufficient technological infrastructure and investment to the lack of competition among Internet Service Providers (ISP).
Fibre-optic cables have typically connected southern Africa to the Middle East and Europe via the East Coast, stunting their contribution to Ghana's technological development.
It does not help that the cost of Internet connection continues to be stubbornly high for the majority of Africans. A United Nations report released ahead of the recent 2010 Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York identified Africa as the most expensive place to get high-speed Internet connection in the world.
The report revealed that costs associated with fixed broadband connection are the equivalent to nearly 40 times the average monthly income in Africa. Compare this to Macao in China, where the same connection costs represent 0.3 per cent of the average income there.
Today, broadband cost is between $500 (720 cedi) and $1,000 (1,440 cedi) per annum for a typical user in Ghana. Add to these costs the necessary broadband hardware which starts from $200 (288 cedi) reaching as high as $10,000 (14,400 cedi) and the feasibility of having in-home Internet is beyond the vast majority of Ghanaians. Not forgetting the need to purchase a computer to put this investment to any use!
This month there has been some downward pressure on certain costs with the National Communication Backbone Company (NCBC), a wholesale seller of bandwidth capacity to ISP, reducing the price at which it sells two megabites to ISPs by 53 per cent.
The slash in costs can be viewed as a reaction to international competition, such as Nigerian Main One Cable, entering to compete in the same market.
The extent of savings offered to consumers are unknown, and sceptics foresee savings being limited to large business accounts with ISPs continuing to extract their profits from households and offices.
The government's Ghana Broadband Strategy has committed to an 80 per cent reduction in broadband costs over the next five years to achieve a 50 per cent penetration rate for Ghana's 23 million strong population. Achieving this ambitious agenda will require ongoing government investment and regulatory pressure to break up the monopolistic ISP environment and democratise the adoption of the Internet.
A solution of a different kind may lie in another area of technology altogether, one that has already penetrated all strata of African society. The mobile phone may be Ghana's, and Africa's, silver bullet facilitating Internet access among the wider public.
Growing Internet access via mobile devices is already transforming the way the western world goes online. Smart phones such as Apple's iPhone are seeing their mobile customers spending 55 per cent of their time utilising online tools and only 45 per cent on voice calls or SMSs. Online services such as maps, banking and social networking are becoming main drivers for people in North America, Europe and Japan to turn to their mobile phone for convenient online access.
Morgan Stanley has forecast that more people will access the Internet via their mobile phones than fixed-line computers in 2015, while Gartner research has optimistically predicted mobile phone dominance in three years.
Mobile subscriptions in Africa are growing at 550 per cent (UN 2009) with the continent’s telecommunications giant, MTN, stating that it will achieve an average of 80 per cent mobile penetration across its 15 African markets (Ghana included) by 2012.
This has analysts looking to mobile phones as the continent’s tool to leapfrog costly land connections altogether, with evolving network speeds and device capabilities allowing phones to become people’s chosen way to get online.
The transformation is already evident in Ghana, led by the major telecommunication corporations promoting their mobile Internet banking credentials and facilitating basic e-commerce.
With the private sector taking the initiative to educate the public on mobile connectivity and competing among each other to facilitate it's uptake, Ghana's Internet adoption via mobile could quickly outpace a landline initiative pioneered by the government.
The cost to a nation’s economy for being left behind in the Internet evolution is great. As developing nations explore the best avenues to fast track their population online, Ghana needs to create a comprehensive and innovative strategy that looks at emerging global trends in order to side-step costly investments that provide outdated solutions to future needs.
Doing so will form a smarter communications agenda and help fast track Ghana's development as a modern nation.
• To submit your thoughts on the state of the Internet in Ghana/Africa, visit www.graphic.com.gh to comment on this article or email ddarling@graphic.com.gh