Read on Twitter
1/ If you& #39;ve ever followed anything on the story of broadband in Africa, you& #39;ve almost surely seen different variations of this graphic showing all the undersea cables bringing capacity to the West African coast.
2/ What this graphic doesn& #39;t tell you is that a lot of that capacity doesn& #39;t get used, especially in low-density, low-income rural areas.
In some villages, you can only get 2G service – so you have a situation where only Whatsapp texts get through via the internet.
In some villages, you can only get 2G service – so you have a situation where only Whatsapp texts get through via the internet.
3/ There are a bunch of reasons for this, but one of the key ones was the Right of Way taxes. Basically, if you wanted to lay fibre, you& #39;d have to pay a tax to the State government.
RoW taxes often represented as much as 70% of the cost of laying fibre!
RoW taxes often represented as much as 70% of the cost of laying fibre!
4/ What that means is that internet companies are very careful about where they invest. No point laying expensive fibre to a low-density, low-income rural area.
But it also means that those areas don& #39;t get high-speed internet, and all the benefits that accrue (incl. jobs)
But it also means that those areas don& #39;t get high-speed internet, and all the benefits that accrue (incl. jobs)
5/ A lot of people have done tremendous work doing advocacy (e.g. @OmobolaJohnson) for this but it& #39;s been hard to get State Governors to see that reducing taxes here could mean more investment, and more revenue down the line.
6/ But now @ekitistategov has reduced RoW taxes from NGN4,500 (~$10) to NGN145 (~$0.30) per meter – a 96% reduction!
Absolutely brilliant and amazing. I can& #39;t praise @AO1379 and his team enough for the work done on that one. https://twitter.com/ekitistategov/status/1260842787274178560?s=12">https://twitter.com/ekitistat...
Absolutely brilliant and amazing. I can& #39;t praise @AO1379 and his team enough for the work done on that one. https://twitter.com/ekitistategov/status/1260842787274178560?s=12">https://twitter.com/ekitistat...
7/ *insert random story making this about me somehow here*