Alliance for Affordable Internet chief tips on ways to cut costs

Early this year, Rwanda was ranked as the African country with the most affordable internet. The ranking by Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain in March this year. The ranking was well received as it is in line with the country’s ambitions of having a knowledge driven economy by 2020. Kojo Boakye, A4AI deputy director was in the country recently; The New Times’ Collins Mwai interviewed him about the ranking and ways to further reduce the cost of internet. What was your main consideration in determining the affordable internet rankings that placed Rwanda top on the continent? We ranked Rwanda alongside 50 other developing countries. Our rankings do not look at prices, rather we look at the conditions countries have put in place, policy and regulatory measures that countries have taken to ensure that affordability will happen. These are policies that ensure that there is competition; there is streamlined room for investment, that there is flexibility for infrastructure sharing and open access policies among others.For Rwanda we looked at the existence of the policies and how they were being implemented. In Rwanda’s case where did the country fair well? In Rwanda, there is private public partnership, infrastructure sharing which is already happening, the quality of infrastructure, streamlined processes and commitment from the government. Though the country is small, there are a lot of efforts that have been put in. Is there a risk that the more policies put in place the more unattractive to investors? We have spoken to operators and they have not complained of the market being closed. There are a number of players most of whom are competing across the continent. None of them has complained about competition. The market as it is and as it should be is open to all investments, big investments and form small and medium enterprises. We have also seen measures taken by the government to attract and nurture investments of all sizes. There has been a move to nurture and promote home grown expertise and investment. Rwanda has a target of internet coverage of 95 per cent of the country by 2017, what do you make of the target, too ambitious perhaps? Though the target might seem ambitious, it is achievable if a country put in the right policies and regulations like some of what has been done in Rwanda such as Broadband plan and infrastructure sharing among others. It is not going to be like the adoption of mobile telephones, you need to have policies that convince ordinary citizens how the internet is relevant for their lives and activities they are involved in. I think the continent needs to have more leaders who are committed in implementation as Rwanda has. Part of the reason for slow update has been due to inadequate local and relevant content on the internet, what is your organisation’s advice on this? It is a chicken and egg question. Do we go out and develop policies that focus on access then assume that entrepreneurs will take advantage of the opportunity to develop content or do we create policies for content and assume there will be access? It is a little bit of both. But you need to have policies that nurture and promote innovation hubs for emerging enterprises that can then create and sell content. We also need to enable innovators and people willing to solve government problems access to data that they need. It is through access to such information that we will have young developers create relevant content and solve challenges being experienced on the continent. Some of the concerns raised at the recent Transform Africa gathering was the revenue sharing models between big corporations and emerging innovators who they work with. There are concerns that there is no equitable sharing model. It is something that regulators should look out for and determine a way forward. They need to address it in such a way that there are incentives for all players. You do not want to fail to invest in a country because of the revenue sharing agreements. You want them to look at an issue, understand and go ahead and work and co-invest alongside the young emerging entrepreneurs. The emerging entrepreneurs also need to understand that they need to protect their ideas and brands while working with bigger players. There are ways to work around the issue without pushing for regulations; incentives can work just as well. Are there any models that we can replicate from the continent in affordability and increased access? Google links in Uganda which is an open access network around Kampala, why can’t we have the same around other areas? These are examples of infrastructure sharing that need to be replicated. In taxation, we have an example of Kenya which removed taxation on smart phones; same as Ivory Coast which has seen the penetration of smart phones go up. We have seen universal service fund in countries such as Ghana that are going out to countries that were previously underserved investing in areas that are hard to reach and are underserved. We can also use models from across the world from areas that are just like us. Malaysia for example went from internet penetration of 31 per cent to about 66 per cent in just three years. These are models that we need to study closely and replicate all over the continent. The biggest thing for me is championing for it and going through with implementation. We know what works; we only need political will, policies that work and implementing them. What are some of the most emerging concerns in the process of making internet accessible and affordable? The big long standing one is Broadband plans; we can see a lot of countries having them. The number has increased exponentially, now we are looking at the quality of the plan and to what extent a country is implementing the plan. Issues of taxation in the sector have been around for ages. Issues of affordability of gadgets and technology can be solved through taxes. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Alliance for Affordable Internet chief tips on ways to cut costs