Low penetration in rural areas
Both the service providers and the Ministry of Information and Communication is alarmed by the low penetration rate into rural areas and and are intent on launching a countrywide campaign to educate people on the need to access the internet reports IT News Africa.

They both acknowledge the need to bring down costs:

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communication Dr Bitange Ndemo said that the Ministry was looking at conducting a countrywide sensitization campaign in an effort of increase the number of Internet users.

A tense PS says, “We have to actively increase the number of users to a point operators are able to reduce costs,” Dr Ndemo said.

Kenya down the list of African internet usage
Kenya has about 3.5 million internet users, equivalent to 8.6 percent of the Kenyan population. Among the top African countries with the highest internet users are Egypt with about 12.6 million of its population , followed by Nigeria with 11 million, Morocco 10.3 million, Sudan 3.8 million, and Algeria 3.5 million in that listing.

Service providers have predicted that it could take up to three years before consumers would see a drop in rates.

This unique start was then followed by a video address by Dr Hamadoun Toure, the ITU Secretary General who explained the recent growth and also the challenges faced by the African market.

Mobile subscription rates are increasing by up 42% per year in Africa. The African mobile market is one of the fastest growth rates in world, for example….Gambia and Equatorial Guinea, mobile adoption is growing by 50 to 70% per year.

Mobile prices are low and accessible is high, but high cost of broadband is a major bottleneck and broadband it was argued should be recognised as national right for all. Mr Toure added that the moment is now ripe to put together and seek the best way forward to drive African Communications.

The Vice President of Uganda likened the ICT revolution to when in the 1950’s when his family grew a lot of cotton. Other countries found it hard to grow and asked how to do it and Uganda became 3rd largest exporter. Similarly in ICT, he explained that training was needed, at all levels in Africa. Utilisation of mobiles needs to be increased and the industry needs to help to develop strong policy on ICT use to improve in Africa. “This can transform people from poverty to middle class with positive change.”

How can Africa develop?
He explained how e-Health schemes for malaria and disease means these issues can now be resolved without coming to Kampala which is great for Ugandans.

He explained that Africa was not yet ready for this big change now, as economies and governments are fragile, but they need to build strong policies to transform societies, as building a democracy takes time so policies are needed now.

Africa Needs To Now Produce
The Vice President highlighted the plight of Africa clearly by saying historically “Africa receives 99.9% of things but needs to turn this around and find out how to do and build capacity to produce”. Uganda consumes but now needs to produce especially in ICT.

Good food for thought, which highlights just how big the digital divide is in Africa and the work needed. This needs to be addressed by both strong policy and public and private partnerships in Africa. At ForgetMeNot Africa are both happy and proud our eTXT technology will help to empower Africans and in the words of Dr Hamadoun Toure, the ITU Secretary General, fullfilling the “national right” of each African to be part of the digital revolution.

We are looking forward to meeting many of Africa’s leading networks and providers over the coming days and demonstrating the exciting new developments with our eTXT service, which provides internet messaging on every mobile phone in Africa, helping to bridge the digital divide in Africa.

Telecoms.com reports Nokia looks to be targeting emerging markets with its Nokia Money service, with the firm predicting that, for many prospective users, it will be the first experience of financial services. While there are four billion mobile phones in the world, Nokia said, there are only 1.6 billion bank accounts, creating a large potential market for basic financial services.

The new suite of services will enable consumers to send money to another person just by using the person’s mobile phone number, as well as to pay merchants for goods and services, pay their utility bills, or recharge their prepaid SIM cards, Nokia said. The firm is creating a network of Nokia Money agents, where users will be able to deposit and withdraw cash from their accounts.

The service will be debuted at Nokia World next week and commercial deployment is scheduled for 2010.

Juniper Research believes that, in 2008, approximately 45% of mobile devices sold worldwide were socalled ‘entry-level’ handsets (which… Nokia defines as being handsets with a retail value less than $60). A small but growing proportion of this total is accounted for by ultra-low cost handsets, which retail for $15 or less.

Of the 700 million low-cost handsets expected to be sold in 2014, Juniper Research believes that the greatest proportion – around 24% – will be sold in Africa and the Middle East…

Speaking to Mobile network Operators all over Africa, it appears that, as they move their focus to the poorer urban and rural communities, these ultra low-cost handsets are becoming even more important.

In support of this:

Africa’s largest mobile phone company, MTN Group Ltd, is planning to bring handsets with MTN’s brand costing as little as $12 in the first half of next year. MTN’s Vice President of southern and east African region, Tim Lowry, said the handsets would be manufactured in China and may be priced between $12 and $15.

Making these phones available will help many unserved African communities to take their first steps across the digital divide. The next step is to encourage the use of SMS and SMS based applications to enable them to experience the benefits of digital communications.

Source: Juniper Research, Wireless Federation

Paul Roberts a Director and co-founder of ForgetMeNot Africa explains how it all began and where FMNA are going….

Listen now

Our 2 – way email and IM to SMS technology, Message Optimiser (MO) received a great reception from the West African telecom operators.

Visitors were amazed that something so simple does not currently exist, without the use of high end phones and many asked where could they avail of this service.

Following the very positive response it wont be long before West Africans can send and recieve email from a low end phone via SMS. The ForgetMeNot Africa team are striving to help Africans bridge this digital divide and our Message Optimiser technology will act as the first stepping stone accross this divide. This will empower people to communicate in an exciting and new way from a low end handset.

The conference included presentations by the Hon. Prof Dora Nkem Akunyili, Nigeria’s Minister of Information & Communications, and representatives of the Nigerian Communications Commission.

Lack of power a major issue in Africa and one of the biggest barriers to closing the digital divide was covered with a number of solutions proposed including wind and solar options.

It was an interesting conference with many key issues debated and we look forward to rolling out Message Optimiser in West and Central Africa.

The conference covered many important issues today including the challenges for rural areas in bridging the digital divide in Africa and how these communities can access improved telecoms services.

This is a much talked about issue, internet penetration is still very low, lack power is a major issue and poverty and affordability will inhibit roll out of services to the mass market. There was interesting debate with the general consensus being it will take  long time for this to happen.

ForgetMeNot Africa  has asked various people for there contributions and will post these soon and welcome any comments and debate.