Y’ello in Africa

Three miles south of Johannesburg’s wealthiest neighbourhoods is the township of Alexandra, one of the city’s poorest communities. The disparity between the two is huge. But, as you can see above, good things are happening. This is a  Y’ello Zone , part of the  MTNaccess project, a nationwide scheme to bring broadband and computing to low-income townships and providing a platform for entrepreneurship. Backed by MTN and the GSM Assocation’s development fund, the Alexandra site just one of seven such pilot projects and hopefully, a sign of better things to come.

But elsewhere in Africa, things are going in exactly the opposite direction. Gabriel Solomon, a director at the GSM Association, recently told Total Telecom Magazine that the new Benin government has suspended the mobile networks of MTN and Atlantique Telecom after they refused to pay US$50m in a one-off fee for a new contract, replacing the one they had paid two years earlier to a previous government. This was a 500% rise from the earlier payment and clearly extortion. 

Despite this kind of despotic behaviour, mobile tariffs in Africa in 2006 were, on average, on a par with other regions, according to the ITU. Just under US$25/month for 100 minutes. When broadband price comparisons look the same, things will really be looking up for Africa.