http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1931000/1931120.stm



          Monday, 15 April, 2002, 15:20 GMT 16:20 UK

          The great African internet robbery



          [text inserted by the moderator]



          The internet in Africa is hampered by unfair costs





          Africa is being ripped off - to the tune of some $500m

a year - simply for hooking up to the World Wide Web, say Kenyan

internet company chiefs.



          And this extra cost is partly to blame for slowing

the spread of the internet in Africa and helping sustain the

digital divide, they contend. According to Kenya's Internet Service

Providers (ISP) Association, the continent is being forced by

Western companies to pay the full cost of connecting to worldwide

networks.



          Chairman Richard Bell says this has led to the unfair

exploitation of the continent's young internet industry. He says

the problem is that International Telecommunications Union regulations

- which ensures the costs of telephone calls between Africa and

the West are split 50:50 - are not being enforced with regard

to the internet.



          "British Telecom doesn't spend one single penny...

America Online doesn't spend one single cent in sending emails

to Africa."



          The total cost of any email sent or received by an

African internet user is borne entirely by African ISPs, Mr Bell

said on the BBC African service programme Talkabout Africa. Despite

the relatively high cost of using the internet in Africa, growth

has been rapid in recent years. All 54 countries are now hooked

up to the internet, and there an  estimated four million subscribers

across the continent . In Kenya alone, there are more than 100,000

subscribers and some 250 cyber cafes across the country.





          Bandwidth



          Mr Bell said that their association had calculated

that the current and latent demand for bandwidth in Africa cost

about $1bn per year. And he said that if data network operators

in the West were forced to adhere to the same regulations as

voice operators then they would have to pay half the cost. "The

only reason this doesn't happen at the moment is that European

and  North American operators are not prepared to pay their share

of the costs."



          "This is exploitation... These networks are raping

Africa of half a billion dollars a year."



          He said that the G8 group of leading nations were responsible

for this inequitable trade and at some point had to act to halt

it, if they were serious about trying to bridge the digital divide.





          And he said that they as an association now planned

to push for this change.



          Action



          They are also calling on African countries to take

action by getting together to reduce their costs.



          A proposal called the Halfway Proposition urges fellow

African countries to create national exchanges and then interconnected

regional ones - as has occured in other parts of the developing

world.



          This would at least mean that the communications costs

for intra-African emails stay within Africa - rather than the

West benefiting from the cost of an email.



          Mike Jenson, who runs the Africa Interconnectivity

web site and is surveying the current utilisation of broadband

on the continent, agrees that this could make a difference.



          "No one really knows how much intra-African traffic

there is, but it's sure to grow and become significant if it

isn't already," he told BBC News Online.



          "If only 5% is intra-regional, it would add up to a

sizeable amount," he said.