Yet another reason to get angry with Bill...

[Pete Ryland]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 03:21:31PM +0100, Jan Claeys wrote:
> Op vr, 17-03-2006 te 12:55 +0200, schreef Alan McKinnon:
> > To be fair to Jan, Africa is quite a big place and it's easy to 
> > generalize. Lucky for me, most of the population *is* poor so this 
> > time I get away with it :-)
> 
> Most, but not all, and there are large differences between regions (you
> can't compare a town in RSA with a village in the middle of the jungle).

This is very true.

> And AFAIK at least in most cities in Africa there *is* internet
> connectivity.  Whether it's accessible by everyone (money-wise) is
> another problem of course...

This is certainly not true.  Let's take South Africa's comparitavely rich
northern neighbour Botswana.  Its capital, Gabarone, has maybe 50,000
population (including outlaying farms etc) and has IIRC two internet "cafes"
and no other possibility for internet connectivity for home use as far as I
know, besides GPRS which was introduced only recently.  And these cafes are
proud to be running maybe half a dozen 486-level machines each.

It's hard to comprehend for us, but Africa is a *huge* place where there are
many who have never heard of the internet, let alone able to use it.

Pete