The State of Net Neutrality in Zambia
Unless you were on an online hiatus at the time you will no doubt have seen the digital protest that was a call for Net Neutrality by some of the largest players in tech across the world.
Net neutrality is a concept that is really not spoken about enough in the African context. Awareness is low & there is a lot of fuzziness around why it is even important.
tldr: Net neutrality is very important. It is actively being eroded in many African countries and the bulk of internet users in those countries don’t even know that it is in fact a thing that is happening let alone something to care about.
important links (with pretty pictures 😉):
- http://www.theopeninter.net/
- https://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality
- http://www.startupash.com/what-is-net-neutrality-and-how-does-it-affect-us/
- http://www.irishtelecom.com/news/net-neutrality-and-the-open-internet/
- http://nepsnews.in/2015/04/06/battle-for-open-internet-will-you-now-have-to-pay-for-whatsapp-youtube/
On the 12th of July I used my Twitter account to try and generate some awareness around the state of things in my country, Zambia. You can view my Twitter thread here.
I will be trying to drill down on the important issues as they pertain to Zambia as much as possible in this post.
What exactly is Net Neutrality?
Net neutrality is the idea that all internet traffic should be treated equally, with no internet service provider (ISP) having the power to favour one source of internet traffic over another by blocking, throttling, or through paid prioritisation.
Why is a neutral internet important?
Net Neutrality allows you and I to communicate freely, consume our choice of content & express ourselves without impediment as long as said internet traffic is legal. Additionally it allows for a level playing field; content creators are treated the same & consumers of the internet are not funnelled into one service over another because one service is able to pay for prioritisation (This means you Facebook & Airtel).
What happens without a neutral internet?
Without a neutral internet ISPs would be able to charge companies with high bandwidth services like YouTube or Netflix as they consume more bandwidth, eventually the pressure of those extra charges would have to be pushed onto us, the consumer. A closer to home example could be a successful version of Kwese TV’s streaming product. Further to that, ISPs could decide to create “internet lanes” with differing speed limits allowing them to dictate which websites should be accessible at a speed of their own choosing (slower), then charging us for better speed to the get the content we want. (Verizon has already been caught limiting speed to Netflix 21/07/2017)
In Zambia both MTN & Airtel offer social media only bundles which are not bandwidth capped. They are orders of magnitude cheaper than the regular internet bundles meaning that people are funnelled into using them over unrestricted internet access.
While on a social media bundle one cannot access any links to web properties outside the domains owned by the social networks covered by the social media bundle. Want to share a link to that job post you found? Can’t do that. Want to share that recipe you found? Can only be done with a screenshot. Want to share the blog post you just wrote? Well I guess you’re going to have to just spam your WhatApp contact list then…
The funnelling works so well that people viewing my company’s Facebook page can’t even go and just look at the content on our website.
It is very distressing to consider that of the social services available through these bundles (Facebook, Whatsapp & Twitter) two are owned by the same company (Facebook owns Whatsapp in the unlikely event that you didn’t know). Even more distressing; on Airtel, Twitter isn’t even available on its own.
Let’s actually give this problem a face, my own.
For those that don’t know, I work at Mvesesani. We run Zambia’s first digital music store. In our use case wherein we retail music on the behalf of Zambian artists; the consumer pays for both the cost of the product from us & then the cost of the bandwidth to get said content. So price of music+price of data to download music.
The Zambian internet is not neutral.
In the last three months MTN introduced a streaming service that allows users to stream music for free for a month before paying for their service. It’s nice when you own access to the internet.
Vodafone followed suite and allow users to stream for free for two whole months before paying for their service. How long until Airtel follows suite do you think?
My co-founder & I agonised for a long time over how to enter the market and serve the music industry in Zambia. We would have loved to actually go into music streaming ourselves but the numbers didn’t make sense & honestly the barrier to entry in data costs in Zambia… Well, Opera has since done the homework for us (get the pdf here).
The fact that the main ISPs in Zambia are also the main telecoms companies means that they are able to market their own products to half the population at next to no cost. They are also able to do things like offer access to their own products for free which they would never do for any competing business, meaning any little Zambian idea, business or startup can never hope to compete. We certainly can’t compete with their pockets. What happens the day that they decide they want to venture into online shopping? Video streaming? MTN has already been in talks to buy Multichoice for a number of months now, what kind of challenges will the host of new Zambian television channels soon face?
*Update(25/07/2017) MTN Subscribers are already receiving this message:
The biggest companies on the internet today exist because of a neutral internet.
Net Neutrality is so important for small business owners, startups and entrepreneurs because it allows us to launch our businesses online, advertise our products and sell them openly, without any discrimination. It is essential for allowing us to innovate and create job opportunities.
Google, Twitter, Uber and even Facebook (who competed with Hi5, Friendster and MySpace) were all possible because net neutrality.
Back to Zambia.
There is a huge push currently to increase internet penetration in Zambia. Given that, it means that we have a great opportunity for startups & entrepreneurs to create many great as well as unique ideas and companies here; the current lack of net neutrality however should worry us greatly.
The fact that Zambian telecoms companies have one of the deepest relationships of any service provider or company with the Zambian populace should not be ignored. They essentially control our basic communication, internet access & soon will have a strong hold on our financial system through mobile money. Our financial system is undergoing a massive push to digitise, the internet is a huge component of that, we should all desire a future where that internet is neutral.
*This post was updated on 25/07/2017 with evidence of MTN planning to launch a TV streaming product.
