Are Mobile Data Technologies Viable As Mainstream Channel Of Internet Connection?

by Oluniyi David Ajao
2007-01-02 08:13:33 | Viewed 3971 times

I know of a few people who are very obsessed about connecting to the Internet, via mobile technologies - I was once one of them. One can hardly blame them. Most African countries are poorly connected by the fixed telecom operators. Broadband connectivity via technologies like ADSL are limited to large cities, in African countries where they are available at all. The number of fixed lines are grossly inadequate, and so dial-up Internet is not an option, for most people. This is the gap that mobile telecommunications companies are filling, using technologies like GPRS, EDGE, CDMA2000 1x, UMTS and HSDPA.

Many people who need Internet connectivity but do not have fixed phone lines, might find fixed wireless or VSAT connectivity too expensive. Can you imagine a student connecting to the Internet via VSAT or fixed wireless? The mobile Internet service being offered by the leading GSM networks in many African countries, thus come handy.

Indeed, the emergence of GPRS and CDMA has helped bridge the digital divide, in no small measure - providing mobile Internet connectivity to many, across Africa.

There is no doubt about the fact that mobile internet connectivity solutions are very useful. They come handy for travellers, or as back-up, when one's main Internet connection is down. I see mobile data technologies as a means of bridging the gap of connectivity, whenever I need to travel into the country-side. Though it is understandable that it is the main thing for many in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal etc, I strongly believe that attention should be shifted to other means of Internet connection.

Cost
GPRS doesn't come cheap. Most cellcos bill per kilobyte of data sent/received. In Nigeria for example, MTN's XtraConnnect package comes with mobile Internet (GPRS) at 60 kobo per kilobyte (roughly $4.80 per MB) whilst Tigo in Ghana charges ¢6.60 per kilobyte for Web access which translates to $0.74 per MB. Tigo Ghana charges a different rate for WAP access. Now, it cannot be feasible for me to pay MTN Nigeria $4.80 per MB of information I send and receive, via my laptop. If I was to surf the Internet and "consume" 50MB per session, do you know how much that would translate into? A whopping $240. Tigo will bill me $37 for 50MB, which is still not feasible.

I now use a fixed wireless broadband Internet service, and pay only $90 monthly for shared 256kb per second bandwidth. I can always use my Tigo whenever I need to travel out of Accra, and still need Internet access.

Service reliability

Close to two years ago, I did a review on Areeba's GPRS. I quote a part of the article, explaining the reliability of using GPRS, for browsing. The situation is still very much the same, on Areeba and Tigo, in Ghana today.

Availability
The GPRS has been available since then despite outage for a few days into the new year 2005. It works best from 10PM till 8AM on weekdays and Sundays from 9AM to 12PM when obviously Spacefon Areeba's network has substantially lower voice traffic. Technically, the amount of voice traffic on a mobile phone network at any given time, affects the quality of service for GPRS. Voice is given priority over data traffic. Thus, using GPRS on a congested network during peak hours is quite an ordeal.

Usability
The service is generally good for normal web browsing. The speed is comparable to that of the conventional dial-up though it can be much faster when the network is not congested. I tested the speed, using a Firefox plug-in I downloaded on Firefox's web site and the indicator was 20kbps. When downloading, the speed falls substantially to 2kbps. It works fine with MSN Messenger, YAHOO! Messenger, FTP, Outlook Express and all other software that depend on an Internet connection, on my laptop.

Browsing WAP pages on my mobile phone is also seamless but depends on whether the network is congested or not.

Downsides
The service usually becomes very slow or completely off, on weekdays, from 4:30PM to around 9:30PM due to network congestion. Calling around this time on Spacefon Areeba is also hectic.

Summary
The service is good for occasional email and general browsing when you are out and about. Web sites heavy with Flash animations should not be attempted at peak hours, as it could take forever to download. It is not a service for the heavy internet user as billing is likely to be per Mb and could eventually dig a deep hole in your pocket.

My Motorola Canopy™ Wireless Broadband Platform is however very reliable. It is always on and very fast, 24 hours everyday. I connected in December 2006, to Teledata ICT and the service is tremendous. Its included in the contract I signed with them, if the quality of service falls below a certain threshold in any month, I pay lower fees, or do not pay at all!

I have focused much on GPRS, because its wide-spread in the West African sub-region. EDGE is also available on Onetouch, Tigo and Areeba, all in Ghana. Celtel Nigeria and Glo Mobile, have only recently launched 3G (UMTS), though these are not yet available, commercially. In South Africa, the cellcos usually bill at the same tariff, irrespective of technology. Thus, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and even HSDPA attract the same tariffs, with the difference being the speed experienced by users.

A close contender to price and reliability, is iBurst technology - but that is a review for another day.

The bottomline is that, perhaps we should by now be focusing on fixed wireless, as the main means of Internet connection, rather than mobile data services, since they are usually costly and very unreliable. Communities like residential estates, or even offices, can share the cost of installation, and then share the bandwidth, via Wi-Fi.

---

Oluniyi David Ajao, a web developer with Web4Africa writes from Accra, Ghana. Read other articles by the same author.

There are no comments on this feature article. Be the first to post!