According to a recent study conducted by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), only 12.1 per cent of the Nigerian population currently enjoy access to quality internet services (Meaningful Connectivity) in the country.
The company further explained that 81 per cent meaningful connectivity gap currently exists in Nigeria, stating that only 6.6 per cent of the rural areas and 16.4 per cent of the urban areas have access to good internet service.
This comes after the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed that broadband penetration in Nigeria reached 42.3 per cent, while users increased to 80.7 million in March.
The statistics released by NCC also mentioned that Internet users via the narrow band also increased to 145.8 million in March.
However, A4AI elucidated that “meaningful connectivity” is a policy framework and internet access metric which help to understand the quality of Internet access someone has.
According to A4AI, they used four indicators that relate to the quality and functionality of an internet connection to measure meaningful connectivity, which include: ownership of a smartphone, a 4G connection, an unlimited broadband connection at home, work or place of study, as well as daily usage.
The study also focused on other African countries (Columbia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa), and A4AI said that only 10 per cent of the total population in these countries are meaningfully connected to the internet.
A4AI also said that in the countries surveyed, the internet service rose to 14 per cent in urban areas and fell by five per cent in rural areas, adding that the percentage of people meaningfully connected ranges intensely within the nine countries surveyed.
The broadband body also stated that rural areas lag behind their urban counterparts in terms of internet connectivity across the surveyed countries.
