The Internet “Access Trap” in Developing Countries

Three of five people in the world  still do not have access to the Internet.  From the perspective of standard economic models, this is puzzling. The supply of international connectivity has expanded dramatically since 2009, when several submarine fiber cables came online connecting even the poorest countries in Africa to the global Internet. Also, with only a few exceptions, nearly every developing country now has some form of competitive market for broadband services.

Despite this, few of these countries are close to achieving the UN Broadband Commission’s goal of entry-level broadband services priced at less than 5 percent of average monthly income. The Affordability Report, released last month by the Alliance for Affordable Internet Internet (A4AI), a consortium of private companies and public sector organizations dedicated to bringing Internet costs down through policy change, found that in at least 46 countries the cost of entry-level broadband services exceeds 40 percent of monthly income for people living under $2/day, and in many countries exceeds 80 percent or even 100 percent of monthly income (I co-authored the Affordability Report with Sonia Jorge).

source: A4AI Affordability Report

One of the most interesting findings in the report is that at the global level, the majority of people for whom broadband is unaffordable live not in the poorest countries, but in larger (lower) middle-income countries with high income inequality, such as China, India and Brazil. We found that many of these countries serve high-end broadband customers in urban areas quite well.  However, poorer communities in urban and rural areas remain underserved because of seemingly weak demand, giving network operators limited incentive to invest in these markets. These mechanisms reinforce one another, creating an “access trap” by further limiting demand and discouraging new market entrants.

We don’t yet have enough evidence to say exactly how countries escape access traps, but we do know that policy makers can play an important role on at least two fronts.  First, policy makers can drive demand by making broadband relevant to people living in poor communities. Perhaps the best way to achieve this is to update the governance of critical public services, such as health, education and water, for the mobile broadband era.  Cloud-based solutions such as Form Hub can help teams more effectively keep infrastructure working across massive geographical areas. As public services drive people to adopt mobile broadband, the private sector can drive these new users to web-based financial services, retail and agriculture.

Second, policy makers can take steps to lower the cost, and thus the  risk, of investing in under-served communities.  Google’s Project Link is providing an open access fiber-optic network around Kampala, Uganda, to help Internet service providers reach end users with faster speeds at lower prices.  Policy makers can play a similar role by  building the Internet into other basic infrastructure. For example, fiber ducts can be built into roads, easing negotiations with local authorities for advanced services such as fiber to the home. Many developing countries also have extensive under-utilized spectrum, which can lead to much faster, much cheaper mobile broadband in rural communities.

We still have much to learn about which policies are most effective at which stages of a country’s Internet infrastructure development.  However, we know the stakes couldn’t be higher. McKinsey recently found that the Internet could contribute $300 billion to Africa’s economy by 2025.  The A4AI Affordability Report makes it clear that many countries still have a long way to go to realize these social and economic gains, but that governments can make decisions now to ensure a broadband-enabled future comes much more quickly.