Africa loses $2bn from Internet shutdowns

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Sub-Saharan Africa lost more than $2 billion in economic value in 2019 after deliberate government action to shut down the Internet for more than 7 800 hours, a new report reveals.

Globally, more than 18 000 hours of Internet shutdowns around the world cost more than $8 billion in the same year.

Algeria, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe were among the worst offenders in terms of the amount of time the Internet was disrupted.

The report, which examines partial and total shutdowns across 122 countries, was published by the Internet research firm Top10VPN and builds on work done by the Internet freedom watchdog Netblocks and advocacy group The Internet Society.

Cell C is technically insolvent, says analyst

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A senior market analyst is challenging Cell C’s largest shareholder, Blue Label Telecoms, to provide financial evidence that SA’s third largest mobile operator is solvent. David Shapiro, deputy chairman of Sasfin Securities, says it’s disturbing that shareholders in the mobile operator have chosen silence instead of explaining the future of the company to the markets.…

Internet penetration in South Africa

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We Are Social and Hootsuite recently published their 2018 Global Digital suite of reports, visualising data about Internet usage around the world. A global overview and in-depth breakdowns on a country-by-country basis were detailed in the reports, including data on South Africa. Citing the International Telecommunications Union, We Are Social reported that South Africa added…