The Internet at the age of 49 years is still un-affordable

The internet was born during September, 1969 when a computer message was first transmitted from University of California, Los Angeles to Standford. Kleinrock and his team pioneered the attempt to make two computers exchange data over a network for first time ever. And Kleinrock puts it as “the first breath of life the Internet ever took.” The first ever message transmitted on the internet was “login”.

Thus the internet came to be known as the global system of inter-connected computer networks that communicate with one another over the Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP).

The general public uses the terms Internet and World Wide Web, interchangeably, however these two are in no way synonymous to each other. The Internet provides an ambit of several Network Services like : World Wide Web, Mobile Web, Apps (Mobile and other platforms), e-mail, online communities, Multiplayer Games, File Sharing, Music and other media streaming services. The World Wide Web or just the Web is sort of a basic program, among other services, that users make use of over the Internet.

Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) is a combined body consisting of businesses, Governments and the Civil Society with an aim to lower the cost to connect to the internet, hence making it accessible to one and all.

A4AI’s 2018 Affordability Report examines the state of policy progress toward affordable internet across 61 low- and middle-income countries.  The Affordability Report is an annual report produced by the Alliance for Affordable Internet. It represents an ongoing effort to understand why some countries (total sample size 61 low and middle income countries) have succeeded in making internet access more affordable and what others can do to catch up quickly.

While most policy makers are much aware of the relationship between online access and economic growth, the measure of the policy frameworks in place to enable better affordability increased by just 1% during previous year.

The annual cost to connect a single subscriber to high speed mobile data for an island archipelago nation like the Philippines, is nearly 5 times the cost to achieve the same in a coastal nation like Nigeria.

While we, the daily users of the internet, have witnessed the immense changes brought about by internet in our lives, there are several people who are yet to discover the internet. The population living in the 61 countries where the study was done, just 24 countries had affordable internet, i.e. 1 GB of mobile data costs less than 2% of average per capita income. While a few others have such skewed internet pricing that 1 GB mobile data would cost them upto 20% of average income.

As against the projected internet penetration of 50% globally by 2017, now the deadline for 50% achievement levels have been pushed back to 2019. Thereby rendering the people bereft of benefits of internet as a whole.

A detailed version of report is available here 2018 Affordability Report, issued on October 22, 2018