In 1990, Africa had 2% of the world's telephones, but in 2000 it had only 0.8%. (These data, taken from International Telecommunications Union tables, represent fixed lines, not wireless, and there are now more mobile telephone subscribers in Africa than fixed-line subscribers. 3 Nevertheless, with about 12% of the world's population, Africa is far behind in per capita telephone subscribers.) (Hundley, Anderson, Bikson & Neu, 2003, p. 126)

More specifically, even with personal computers and needed telephones there are still major lags in internet access.

Regarding Internet access, South Africa again dominates the continent's usage; it has approximately 750,000 dial-up Internet subscribers out of about 1.36 million for all of Africa, or about 55% of the total.... Overall, in 1998, Africa had just 4% of the world's Internet hosts 6 and 0.22% of World Wide Web sites. 7 One must also remember how poor Africa is in general. At an...
[ View Full Essay]