by OHENEBA AMA NTI-OSEI
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer, poses with Kenyan tech entrepreneurs in Nairobi’s IHUB PHOTO/Facebook
Facebook’s efforts to control the access of African internet users has sparked an infrastructure arms race between the internet giants
Africa’s internet users are benefiting from the fact that two of the world’s biggest tech companies are using their considerable means to compete over Africa’s internet users.
Facebook’s Internet.org initiative, launched in 2013, is in the pole position, controlling access to the web through its Free Basics platform. This has stung search giant Google to fight back and get more Africans on the open web, or risk losing its role as the internet’s main search tool.
Both powerhouses have grasped the huge potential the continent’s 1.2 billion audience presents for increased advertising revenue and growth in new users. Using old and new technologies, the giants are playing it out undersea, on land and in the skies to secure a piece of the African connectivity pie.
Facebook opened its first African office in South Africa in 2015 and has a substantial footprint on continent. According to 2015 statistics released by the social network, 60% of all internet users in Africa were active Facebook users.
To champion his cause of getting the world online, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched the Free Basics app in September 2015 to provide internet access to the two-thirds of the world lacking it.
The Free Basics app gives users free access to a limited number of websites, Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp and Facebook itself without charging data costs.
Facebook and mobile network operators carefully select country-specific sites to cover entertainment, health, news, social media and sports, leaving users with less need for Google.
The Free Basics platform only works through mobile carriers, which is a faster means for Facebook to reach the masses. In November last year, Facebook announced its biggest African collaboration yet – with Airtel Africa – to launch Free Basics in 17 countries.
So far, the app is available in 11 Airtel markets including Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda and Nigeria. In Ghana, the partnership has created “tremendous growth in terms of customer intake, with more than 200% growth,” according to Airtel Ghana’s data business director, Jean Claude Domilongo Bope.
Free Basics is now available in 21 African countries out of a total 47 countries worldwide. The charitable nature of the project has been questioned, as mobile operators – and not Facebook – are left to cover the data costs.
The app has also stirred controversy in India, where regulators banned it in February 2016 for violating net neutrality.
Building links
Nevertheless, the threat is real, and to challenge Facebook’s popularity across the region Google has focused its energy on improving the continent’s much-needed infrastructure.
Last-mile connectivity – the connection that extends networks into homes and businesses – remains a challenge, and this is where Google is stepping in. Through its Project Link initiative, the search giant is building links between undersea cables and internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile networks
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