A survey by Les Cottrell and Monique Petitdidier (reported on at the IHY meeting Ethiopia in November 2007) of leading Universities in 17 African countries showed the following results:
- We had answers from Benin, Cameroun, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Libya, Liberia, S. Africa (3), Algeria, Burkina Faso (2), Mozambique,. Ivory Coast, Congo DR, Congo R, Niger, Ethiopia, Uganda
- We did not get answers from from Senegal and Namibia
- 50% of the responders used commercial email addresses such as yohoo.com
- Typical leading university had tens of thousands of students and 1000 or staff.
- The best university had 2 Mbits, worst dial up 56kbps
- In some cases it is DSL at 128kbps or even dial up at 56kbps (c.f. typical US or European University with >= 1Gbps)
- Often only faculty are allowed to use the Internet.
- Only in 7 countries (Egypt, Cameroun, S. Africa, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Ethiopia) are all universities connected.
- For other countries it varies from 5% to 50% of universities have Internet access.
- For Sub-Saharan Africa only S. Africa (TENET), Burkina Faso (RENER), Kenya (KENET) and Malawi (MAREN) have an NREN.
- Four countries have Internet connectivity in capital only (Ivory Coast, Niger, Congo DR, Congo Rep).
- South Africa has access almost anywhere people can afford it.
- Most want more bandwidth and reduced costs. Suggestions to increase competition, remove monopolies, open markets to international companies. Reliable power is often cited as a problem.